Nightmares
by Trinity Day
Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. A preseries look into the beginning of their friendship. Complete.
1. Voices

**Nightmares  
Part 1/?**

**Disclaimer: I do not belong the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.**

**Posted: Friday, April 25, 2003**

**Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. A pre-series look into the beginning of their friendship.**

**This has not been beta'ed. I would not even know where to begin to look for a beta in this fandom. If you happen to be reading this and take pity on me, e-mail me at trinityday@hotmail.com or leave your e-mail in a review with an offer.**

**I have Support Services. If you want to receive notices of when my news stories/parts are posted, add me to your Author Alerts. Even if you don't have Support Services, you'll receive them.**

The first nightmare was Jean's. She had only been at the Institute for about two months and it was far from her first nightmare since arriving at the school. But always before the Professor had been there, helping reinforce the psi-shields around her room. Tonight he was in Washington on business and while the shields were still up, they weren't nearly as strong as they were when he was in the mansion.

It started with Annie. It always did. They were playing, laughing, then she was on the ground, broken and bleeding. Then the voices started. She covered her ears, huddled in the corner, but if anything, the voices only got louder.

"Jean."

"Stop it! Stop it!"

The voices grew louder. They were mocking, said nasty things about her.

"Jean!"

She just wanted them to stop. They wouldn't.

They -

"Jean!"

It wasn't the person calling her name that woke her up finally, but the sudden weight on her. Panicking, she tried to shove the mass off her. It turned its head and Jean recognized the shape as Scott. Even the in dismal light, he looked paler than usual.

"Don't move," he ordered. But he shifted his weight so that she was no longer pinned down and the second she was freed, Jean backed up against the headboard, tucking her knees under her chin. As she was doing so, she placed her hand on something sharp and cried out.

"I said don't move," Scott said. "Are you okay?" He took her hand into his. It was bleeding. So was his arm.

"What happened?" Jean asked. She was finally calming down. The last vestiges of her nightmare were being chased away by consciousness and for once, the voices were quiet. But then, now that she was awake, she was starting to remember that it had been like that for awhile now. Between Scott's mental shields and her own - although neither were anywhere near proficient at constructing them yet - Jean was able to block out his thoughts now that she was awake. The only other person within miles was Ororo Munroe, who had even better mental shields than either of the young teens, even while presumably sound asleep.

She was able to concentrate on other things now - for instance, the fact that her bed was covered in what looked like little shards of glass. It must have been on one of these that Jean had cut her hand and Scott his arm.

"You had a nightmare," Scott explained. "I'm sorry about your mirror. We should get your hand fixed up."

Jean nodded wordlessly. She was starting to get up when Scott caught her arm. "Be careful," he warned. "There are bits of mirror everywhere. Do don't want to step on one."

"Did I do this?" Jean asked, finding her voice again even if it did sound small and scared.

"The mirror? No. Well, sort of. But it's my fault." Scott carefully pulled back the blankets so that most of the bed was clear, not allowing any of the shards to fall on the floor. "I saw the mirror coming at us and I panicked and shot it. I'm sorry."

"It would've shattered anyway when it hit something," Jean told him. She was carefully testing the ground beside her bed, wishing there was some light to see the bits of mirror. Unfortunately, she had wrecked her lamp the last time she'd had a nightmare.

"Watch out!" Apparently Scott's night vision was much better than her own, and Jean stopped in mid-step, shaking slightly while trying to regain balance. She had been just about to put her foot down on top of a medium size piece. Jean extended her foot a little further and made it the rest of the way out of the room without incident.

Once outside under the light of the hall, Jean began to feel better, except for her hand, which was stinging even more now. "Should we go get Ms. Munroe?" she asked.

"Don't need to wake her," Scott said, leading the way. "I know where all the first-aid stuff is."

So did Jean for that matter, but that hadn't been the reason she had suggested going to their teacher. Getting grown-up help seemed like the thing to do. In the past when she had nightmares, one of the adults always came to her room to help, especially those times when, like tonight, her subconscious had telekinetically flung around the furniture in her room. Usually, though, the adult in question was the professor and the one time he hadn't been there when she had first awoken, he had already been on his way.

Still, if Scott didn't want to, she wasn't going to insist on waking Ms. Munroe.

"What _were_ you doing in my room anyway?" Jean asked when they had reached the infirmary. She was sitting on top of the patient bed while Scott rummaged through the medical cabinet for iodine and bandages.

He poured a liberal amount of the former over her cut as he answered: "You were having a nightmare. I was trying to wake you up."

Jean probably would have flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and self-anger if the iodine didn't sting so much. As it was, she settled on flinching and having Scott hold onto her hand more tightly as she tried to jerk it away. "Oww."

"Hold still," he said, showing no sympathy. "You don't want it to get infected."

"I know _why_ you're doing it, but it still hurts," said Jean, a little testily.

"Stop being such a baby," Scott ordered.

This time Jean did flush, although her ire was aimed at the boy opposite her this time instead of herself. Scott, however, did not notice because he was too busy wrapping up her hand.

"There," he said when he was satisfied that the bandage would stay on.

His own injury was a little better than hers. He had more scratches running up his right arm, but none as deep or wide as the gash across Jean's palm. Taking a closer look at it, however, Jean noticed something for the first time.

"There's still glass in your arm!"

Scott looked down, taking note of the three shards of glass for the first time, too. "Damn it. Do you know if there are any tweezers down here?"

"It's okay. I've got it." Jean got off the bed and stood beside him. Holding his arm steady at the wrist with her left hand, she raised her right to her temple. She took a deep breath and tried to swallow the lump that had appeared in her throat. For possibly the first time since she had arrived, Jean felt glad that she couldn't see the other boy's eyes; she didn't need to see the look of terror he was bound to have at what she was about to do. Her own apprehension was bad enough.

But Scott didn't pull away. His trust was enough to make Jean close her eyes and _concentrate_.

It was painstakingly slow work, but Jean was able to dislodge first one, then the second piece of glass from his arm with such finesse that Scott felt no additional pain and his arm suffered no more damage. She _knew_ this, could feel his wonder, and watched the third and final piece start to lift in a strangely red world -

Twin cries echoed through the infirmary as the last shard zipped across the room, thankfully away from either of the inhabitants, and embedded in the wall. Jean backed up against the wall and started to repeat, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again.

Scott, who had gone another shade paler and was holding onto his wrist, which Jean had grabbed a little too forcefully in the last few seconds of contact, lied through his teeth when he said, "I'm okay." Although they had both reinforced their shields, Jean could still feel enough of his emotions to know that he was trying to reassure and calm her, but was still being sincere.

"We shouldn't have tried using our powers without the professor here," he continued.

"I didn't mean to . . . I hurt you. I'm sorry." She didn't move away from the wall.

"I didn't mean to make your mirror explode, either," Scott said. "Let's call it even."

Jean knew that didn't make it even. He wouldn't have had to blast the mirror if she hadn't made it soar towards their heads in her sleep. Everything that had gone wrong that night could be linked back to her. However, she was tired and hurt and scared and, above all, _grateful_ for Scott being here with her and helping her. If Scott was going to pretend that they were both at fault, then she wasn't going to argue with him. At least not tonight.

"Thank you," she whispered, looking at her feet instead of his eyes . . . or rather glasses. "We should look at your arm now." Would he even want her near him again, after what had happened? " I mean, the glass is out now, right? And you can't bandage up your own arm, at least not very easily." She probably would have continued on with her babble if Scott hadn't cut her off.

"If you don't mind."

"No. I don't. Of course not." And although Scott looked like he wanted to bolt, he didn't move a muscle. Despite both their misgivings, Jean was able to clean and bandage his arm without further incident.

"So," Jean said, falling back when she was done, "I guess we should get back to bed now." Truthfully, that was the last thing that she wanted. Since coming to the Institute, her nightmares occurred less frequently, but that was only because Professor Xavier was always there to help her afterwards. Before that, however, a nightmare usually meant the end of sleep for the night, because more than half of the time - if she actually was able to get back to sleep - they returned.

Scott shrugged. "If you want. I'm not tired."

"Me neither," Jean lied. She managed to stifle the yawn that followed right after the statement, but not without garnering a suspicious look from Scott. He didn't comment on it, however, probably due to the fact that he, too, looked ready to drop from exhaustion at any minute.

"Wanna watch a movie?" Scott suggested.

"Sure." Jean gave him a hesitant smile. "Better than hanging out in the infirmary all night."

Scott didn't smile back at her not-quite-joke, but nodded, so Jean didn't feel too stupid about what she had said. They decided to watch _Indiana Jones_ because it had to go back to the video store in the morning. After putting in the tape and cuing it to the start, Scott settled onto the couch beside Jean. Even though they were both using the movie as an excuse to keep from going back to sleep (although _why_ Scott was avoiding his bed, Jean couldn't figure out), it became apparent that neither of them were following the adventures of the archeologist/adventurer.

It was Jean who drifted off to sleep first. Although she did wake up some indeterminable time later, it was only long enough to take note of three things. One, the movie had stopped and they were now facing a blank screen even though the television was still on. Two, Scott had covered them both up with blanket was currently curled up beside her, dead to the world.

And three, her nightmare hadn't come back.

Her last thought was that she should probably get up and go back to her own room. She didn't recognize the humour in the fact that, as she thought that, she stole more than her share of the blanket from Scott and closed her eyes again. She was asleep again within seconds.

That was how Ororo found them the next morning.

End Part One


	2. First Impressions

**Nightmares  
Part 2/?**

**Disclaimer: I do not belong the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.**

**Posted: Sunday, May 25, 2003**

**Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. Chapter Two: in which Jean meets Scott for the first time. A pre-series look into the beginning of their friendship.**

**I'm sorry this took so long, but Elaine Grey didn't like me, John just sat there and even Professor X was being difficult. Plus, I started my new job and tried to host (well, I suppose I *did* host) a bridal shower for a friend who's getting married in two weeks. God, I feel old! But on the bright side, it's longer than part one. It doesn't look like I'll be able to balance the chapter lengths of this story as much as I'd like to. Oh well.**

**Thanks to the roughly two hundred people who read (or at least started to read) the first part and double thanks to the seven who reviewed it. Special thanks to Jen, who was kind enough to beta this part for me. If you haven't already done so, go read her stories, _First Sight_ and _Snow_ under her pen name, Jen1703. They're very enjoyable and, unlike me, she updates in a reasonable amount of time!**

**I have Support Services. If you want to receive notices of when my news stories/parts are posted, add me to your Author Alerts. Even if you don't have Support Services, you'll receive them.**

Jean remembered the first time she saw Scott.

She had just arrived at the Institute and was in the study with Professor Xavier and her parents. In theory, it was one last visit before Jean's parents left her at the school. In reality, every occupant of the room knew they were in the middle of a minefield: one false step and Jean's parents would find yet another excuse to postpone her stay at the Institute, as they had done countless times in the past few years that Charles Xavier had been working with their daughter.

Tension filled the room, radiating from everyone and piercing through Jean's ramshackle shields. Professor Xavier gave her what best could be described as a reassuring mental smile and helped reinforce the barriers around her mind. She relaxed slightly, noticing only now with the absence of the tension how on edge she had been all day.

Professor Xavier had paused when he was helping Jean, ostensibly to take a sip of tea, but now continued. Jean was able to pay attention for the first time, but quickly discovered that she didn't particularly want to. "Mutants, while still incredibly rare, are becoming increasingly more common. It is my hope to open this school so that this generation of mutants will have a place to train and learn to control their powers safely."

It was nothing Jean hadn't heard before. Charles Xavier had been toying with this idea for as long as she'd known him - and trying to convince her parents to let Jean be one of his first students for almost as long. Instead of paying attention to the conversation, she studied the serene woman sitting beside the professor who had introduced herself earlier as Ororo Munroe. She wasn't paying much attention either, Jean knew, but somehow gave the impression of being suitably enraptured.

"I already have my first student, as you know, so Jean will not be here alone. And I am confident that I will soon be able to start to actively seek out other students."

Elaine Grey discreetly nudged her daughter, a reprimand for her wandering attention. Even with the additional mental shields Jean could feel her mother's irritation. "The other boy - "

"Scott," Ms. Munroe supplied. She was soft-spoken and had a slight accent that Jean couldn't place.

"Yes, Scott." Her mother's displeasure at being interrupted was obvious to Jean even without the aid of telepathy. "Where is he, exactly? We would like to meet him."

"He hasn't arrived home from school yet, but he should be here any minute," Professor Xavier answered. "I thought you would like to meet him so I asked him to come home right after classes ended today."

"School." Up until this point, his wife had been dominating the conversation, but now John Grey spoke up. "Your own classes here - will you only be teaching the children how to control their powers? The rest of their education will be through conventional schools?"

"Yes, Scott is a freshman at Bayville High, our local high school. At one point I was considering privately tutoring them, but that would defeat the purpose of the Institute. We are working towards a peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants, and that won't happen if we segregate ourselves, even if it's voluntary. I don't see a reason why mutants cannot attend regular school with everyone else. Any mutant," the professor said, the last bit deceptively mild.

This was the real reason why her parents were finally seriously considering Xavier's offer. Without his help, Jean couldn't attend school - or be in any public place, for that matter. Lately, other people's thoughts were getting louder and harder to ignore. They weren't anywhere near the levels that had caused her to become catatonic after Annie's death, but they were there nonetheless, and increasingly so despite Professor Xavier's mental blocks. On top of that, she'd begun to make things _move_ without touching them or meaning to move them. She had been forced to drop out of school entirely a month ago after spending half the year absent more often than not.

Jean's mother pursed her lips, not liking to be reminded that, as much as she wanted a normal life for her daughter, it wouldn't be possible without Charles Xavier's help.

The professor picked up on her body language. "Elaine - John - I must be frank. Already I am finding less and less time to spend with Jean and I only have one student. When the school grows, I don't know how I'll be able to split my time between my students here and Jean if she remains at home. It will not be fair to any of them. If, however, Jean were to stay here, I would be able to devote the necessary time helping her learn to control her gift. Scott's arrived. Would you like to meet him now?"

The non sequitur threw the Greys and didn't give them any time to reply before the door to the study opened and a boy close to Jean's age entered.

He was roughly Jean's own height, possibly an inch or two shorter, with brown hair and an impossibly skinny build. He was wearing a pair of old jeans, a little worn at the knees but without holes, and a baggy black t-shirt. His socks didn't match, one navy and the other a dark green.

Then there were his sunglasses, which were incongruous with the rest of his outfit. Jean thought they looked somewhat trendy, but couldn't tell for sure because she didn't follow fashion trends very closely. The red shades stood out against his outfit. Outdoors would probably be a different story, but Jean wondered why a boy who was evidently not interested in appearances would continue to wear a pair of red sunglasses indoors where it was too dark for shades.

"John, Elaine, Jean, this is Scott Summers, whom I've told you about. Scott, this is our new student, Jean Grey, and her parents John and Elaine." They were back to pretending that Jean was staying.

The boy - Scott - nodded a greeting. "Hi."

"Why don't you sit down," Ms. Munroe suggested when he hung back uneasily by the door, shifting the weight of his school bag from one shoulder to the other.

"I'm fine," he insisted.

Ms. Monroe quirked her eyebrows skeptically, but did not comment. "We were just discussing what the Institute is all about," Professor Xavier said. "Mr. and Mrs. Grey are anxious to speak with you, and I thought that afterwards you could take Jean on a tour of the grounds."

Scott shrugged. "Okay."

Jean's mother was starting to get impatient with the reticent boy who was bordering on being rude and couldn't stop fidgeting. For once Jean could take comfort in the fact that she knew this because she knew what her mother was like and not because Professor Xavier's mental shields were leaking.

"Scott, here, has been with us for a little over a year now and has been making great progress in learning to control his gift," the professor said. Jean thought she heard Scott snort, but by the time she had turned back to look at him, he had composed himself again. It was much easier to look innocent, she discovered, when your eyes were hidden behind sunglasses.

Elaine Grey also seemed to notice his snort, probably because she hadn't turned back to look at Professor Xavier when he began to speak, and was instead looking at Scott with unmistakable disapproval. She tried to engage him in a staring contest. That it was next to impossible to do so because the sunglasses hid the boy's eyes just served to make her more irritated. "What does he do?" she asked, directing the question at Professor Xavier, but looking at Scott.

Professor Xavier answered, "Scott has optic blasts - "

"Basically, I shoot lasers out of my eyes," Scott interrupted. "And no matter what the professor says, I'm not any better at controlling it than I was, and I won't ever be better at it."

"Young man! It is rude to interrupt your elders," Jean's mother chided. Unfortunately, once she had started scolding she couldn't stop, so all the things that she had been wanting to say to Scott now came out. "Stop fidgeting; you are certainly old enough to stand still for five minutes. Sit down so we don't have to crane our necks to see you and take off those sunglasses! We're inside."

"No."

That one word forever endeared Scott Summers to Jean. Not only was he refusing to cower before the domineering force that was Elaine Grey, but he was actually standing up to her.

Her mother was incredulous too, not used to people defying her - especially not those her daughter's age. Even her husband tended to recognize her authority on most issues. "No?" she questioned.

"I can't take off my sunglasses," he explained in a scathingly sarcastic voice, "not unless you'd like me to blast through the walls and probably everyone here, as well. As I said, control over my powers is not my forte. So you'll excuse me if I leave my glasses on, even if I'm inside, _ma'am_."

*_Scott!*_ Jean wondered if she was supposed to hear the professor's mental rebuke. She doubted it.

"Perhaps Scott could help me bring the dishes back to the kitchen." Ms. Munroe's voice was serene but her eyes were holding back a smile. "Mr. and Mrs. Grey, would you like anything else to drink?"

"We're fine, thank you," John Grey quickly assured before his wife had the chance to speak.

Ms. Munroe stood up. "Jean, would you mind helping? Perhaps Scott can give you that tour Charles was mentioning."

Jean nodded and helped Ms. Munroe and Scott collect the dishes from her parents and the professor. Her mother glared at the teenage boy the entire time, but knew enough to hold her tongue until they left.

"I'm sorry about Scott," Jean heard the professor saying as the door closed.

Scott stopped shortly down the hall, folding his arms across his chest as best he could with his hands full of dishes, and regarding Ms. Munroe. "Well?"

Ms. Munroe seemed to understand what the cryptic question was about. "I think you could have been more polite, Scott, but we can talk about that later. In fact, I'm sure Charles will talk to you about that later. For now, help me bring this stuff into the kitchen, and then you can show Jean around the school. How does that sound?"

"Okay," Scott agreed.

"She's seems nice," Jean said afterwards, as Scott led her up the back stairs that he said the servants used back when the Xavier family had servants.

"Ororo? Yeah, she's nice. So's the professor most of the time. Logan's pretty cool." Scott smirked. "He probably would have been kicked out today, too, while the professor was recruiting."

"Logan?" Jean panted, struggling to keep pace with Scott. He was bounding up the stairs three at a time.

"Yeah. Wolverine. He's another . . . well, I guess you could call him a teacher. Of sorts."

That sounded ominous. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll get it when you meet him," Scott said.

"Where is he? Is he working or something?" asked Jean.

That earned an all-out laugh from Scott. "Logan? Work? Not exactly. Unless it involves explosives or fights, that's not Logan's sort of thing."

"Explosives? This is one of our teachers?" Jean was beginning to have second thoughts about coming here.

"Of sorts," Scott repeated. "You'll get it when you meet him." They reached the top of the stairs and he waited for her to catch up. He must have noticed the slightly nervous look on her face, for he added, "Don't worry. He's not as bad as he sounds. He's not dangerous - well, not to us. If anything he's overprotective. Really."

"I'll get it when I meet him?" Jean asked and was rewarded with a real smile.

"Yeah. Anyway, this wing is where the bedrooms are. The big one's Professor X's. Ororo has the one down the hall with the view of the gardens. They're hers, really. The gardens, I mean. She does all the work. We wouldn't have a garden without her. I don't know anything about flowers, the professor isn't exactly able to get on his hands and knees in the dirt and Logan - well, Logan isn't exactly a flower kind of guy. When he's here, he has the room down the hall."

They stopped in front of one of the unclaimed bedrooms. "This is going to be yours," Scott told her. "We were going to paint it, but weren't sure what colour you wanted."

Jean peered into the bare room. "Pink's fine," she said. She didn't want to be too much trouble and that shade of pink almost suited the room.

"I only have two weeks left until exams. We'll probably get to it right after they're finished," said Scott.

She looked at him curiously. "What are you talking about?"

It was Scott's turn to be taken aback. "Your room. We'll paint it in a couple of weeks."

"But Scott - it's already pink."

"Oh." Was it her imagination, or was Scott embarrassed? Before now Jean never realized how much she relied on people's eyes (and their thoughts, but the professor was taking care of that) to know what they were thinking.

"Are you colour blind or something?"

"Sort of." Jean wondered just how many things at the Institute could be explained by "sort of". "It's the glasses. Everything looks red to me because of them."

It seemed rather obvious in hindsight and Jean fought to stop a blush from creeping across her cheeks. Being a redhead, her face tended to go bright red whenever she blushed and she hated it. "So why do you have to wear the glasses? You said it has something to do with the lasers."

"They're not actually lasers, it's just easier to call them that sometimes. They're a lot like lasers, but without the heat. The professor's term is "concussive optic blasts". The ruby quartz stops them. I can't control my powers."

"I can't control my powers either," Jean said, trying to be comforting. "At least not well and not without Professor Xavier's help. That's what we're here to do, isn't it? Learn how to control our powers?"

"That's the speech," Scott said, turning away.

"I thought you might have heard it before," Jean said, smiling shyly. She hoped she would get one from him in return but Scott didn't seem to notice.

"This is my room," Scott said, leading her to a bedroom down the hall.

"You don't mind pink either?" Jean asked innocently. She was able to keep a straight face for a few seconds until the look of utter horror on Scott's face made her burst into giggles.

Comprehension dawned and Scott opened his mouth to say something, stopped and closed it again. He repeated the process several more times, looking very much like a fish. "So it's not pink," he said eventually.

"No, it's not pink," Jean confirmed, still giggling.

Somehow, she could tell that he was giving her a dirty look. "You're sure of that?"

"I'm sure. Don't worry, it's a nice, manly blue."

"Very funny." Scott sounded sarcastic but Jean could see the corners of his mouth threatening to turn up in a smile now that the initial shock was over. "Come on," he said, and they continued on their tour.

When at last they came back into the front hall, Jean's mother was waiting for them, her coat on and her foot tapping impatiently. For one brief moment, Jean was afraid Professor Xavier hadn't been able to smooth things over and that her parents were taking her home. Her mother's next words put her fears to rest.

"Your father's bringing the car around with your things. Charles said your room is on the second floor." It was almost a question, so Jean nodded. "Good. Scott will help your father bring your stuff up. We'll bring the rest of it by next weekend when we come visit you."

Her mother's proclamation left no room for arguments or even questions - not that Jean wanted to argue against staying at the Institute.

That night, as Jean lay awake in her new bed in the room that looked blue in the darkness, she couldn't get her mind off of the teenager with the red sunglasses.

End Part Two


	3. Fire

**Nightmares  
Part 3/?**

**Disclaimer: I do not belong the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.**

**Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2003**

**Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. Chapter Three: in which Scott has a nightmare and Jean discovers what's going on. A pre-series look into the beginning of their friendship.**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed and I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to each of you personally. I've had a hectic couple of weeks. Along those lines, I should also mention that it will _not_ always take me a month between updates. The next few should be up at a much better pace.**

**Again, a special thanks to Jen, who was kind enough to beta this part for me. If you haven't already done so, go read her stories, _First Sight_ and _Snow_ under her pen name, Jen1703.**

**I have Support Services. If you want to receive notices of when my news stories/parts are posted, add me to your Author Alerts. Even if you don't have Support Services, you'll receive them.**

Jean dreams of fire.

Flames jump about, licking at her face, and she backs up instinctively. Only there is nothing behind her but a gaping hole in the wall and a very long drop.

Flames surround her family, cutting them off from her. She wants to run to them but is too afraid to get close to the fire.

"Go!" her mother shouts. "**Go**!"

Jean doesn't remember jumping, but she is falling. Fire is following. It catches up to her and she begins to fall faster and faster -

Jean woke up before she hit the ground. She sat up, relieved to find she hadn't actually fallen off the bed (or down onto the bed like the one time last month when she had been levitating in her sleep).

Two things struck her. The first was that the people in the dream had not been her family, even though while dreaming she had been absolutely certain that they were. The mother and father were nothing like Elaine and John Grey, in appearance or mannerism (although again, she wasn't sure how she knew how the parents acted, just instinctively knowing it wasn't like her own parents). She didn't even have a brother - unless there was something her family wasn't telling her about Sara.

That led to Jean's second observation: it was not her dream. Once she realized that, things began to make more sense.

Putting on her slippers, Jean made her way to Scott's room. He was the only possible owner of the dream.

Sure enough, when Jean entered his room after receiving no response to her knocking, she saw Scott tossing restlessly in his bed, clearly still in the throes of the nightmare.

"Scott?" she asked softly.

He turned, mumbling something incoherent, but didn't awaken. Jean wasn't sure if he was reacting to her voice or to something in his dream.

"Scott?" she tried again, a little louder. She went over to his bed and shook him gently.

He reacted violently. Before he was even completely awake, he knocked her arm away - and would have knocked his glasses off in the process had he been wearing them - and backed up so much that Jean was surprised he didn't fall off the bed.

Scott turned on the lamp beside his bed. "Jean?" he asked after his eyes adjusted to the sudden light. He was still breathing heavily.

"Yeah, it's me. Sorry I startled you."

"I didn't mean - I thought - I'm sorry." As he was speaking, Scott exchanged the strange red goggles he wore for his regular glasses. For the few seconds that his face was bare, his eyes were screwed shut tighter than Jean thought possible.

"Sorry for what?" Jean asked, not understanding any of what Scott was trying to say.

"For hitting you -when I woke up. I didn't hurt you, did I?" asked Scott.

"I'm fine," Jean reassured in her most soothing voice. She sat down on the far side of his bed, making sure to give him plenty of space, even though he was awake now and would not mistake her for something from his nightmare and try to knock her off the bed again. "Don't worry about it. You were having a nightmare; of course you were startled when I tried to wake you up."

"What did you see?" Scott was usually better at stringing together coherent sentences, but since he obviously was still shaken, Jean had been willing to ignore it. However, this question just didn't make sense to her.

"What do you mean?"

"What did you see?" Scott repeated as if the meaning should have been obvious.

"I didn't see anything," said the still confounded Jean. "I mean, you were having a nightmare, I came in here, woke you up and that was it. What was I supposed to see?"

Scott stared at her - or at least in her direction - as if to determine whether she was telling him the truth.

"You didn't see anything? You didn't see my dream?"

Jean's mouth opened slightly in shock and by the time she recovered enough to close it, she could feel a blush beginning to spread across her cheeks. "Oh - that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It was an accident. I don't remember much, just a bit about fire and then falling. I'm really sorry. It was an accident." Jean was babbling and by the time her brain caught up to her mouth and told it to shut up, another question had entered her head. "How did you know?"

"You knew I was having a nightmare and came to wake me up," said Scott.

"How do you now I just didn't overhear you?" Jean challenged. "After all, that's what you did." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Jean realized what really had happened three nights previous. "You had my nightmare?"

"I had your nightmare," Scott confirmed, pulling his knees up and tucking them under his chin. "You didn't know?"

Jean shook her head. "No. I thought you woke up and heard me. That's what usually happens with Professor Xavier." Although now she wasn't so sure about that. Did she always project her nightmares? Was that why Professor Xavier almost always came when she was having one? Before, she had always assumed that she'd woken him with the noise of the destruction that invariably accompanied her disturbing dreams. After all, it always woke up Logan when he was home, and sometimes even Scott.

"No. I was sharing your nightmare and woke up. Since you didn't seem to be waking yourself, I figured I'd try. When I went into your room, I saw the mirror flying at us - and, well, you know the rest."

"How'd you know it was my dream?"

Scott shrugged. "It wasn't mine."

"So?" questioned Jean. "That didn't necessarily make it mine. It could have been . . . Ms. Munroe's."

"When are you going to start calling her Ororo like she asks? Besides, it wasn't hers, it was yours," Scott said.

"But how would you know?" asked Jean.

Again, Scott shrugged. "It just seemed like a Jean dream. I don't know _how_ I knew; I just did. How did _you_ know it was my dream tonight?" He was beginning to sound fed up with her questions.

"You're really the only one who _could_ have had the dream," replied Jean.

"Exactly!" exclaimed Scott, sounding satisfied, although Jean still thought it didn't explain everything. She didn't get a chance to ask further questions, though, because at that minute she shivered. "Are you cold?" Scott asked. He didn't wait for her to answer before he offered her his blanket.

"Thanks," Jean said, taking it gratefully. She pulled it up around her shoulders, thankful for the warmth. "Aren't you cold?" she asked. Scott's pajamas couldn't be much warmer than Jean's own sleepwear, yet Scott wasn't even under his sheets.

"It's August, Jean; it's not that cold." Yet despite his words, he shifted so that he was leaning up again the headboard with his legs stretched down the bed, and pulled up the sheets so that they were covering him.

"Do you want to talk?" Jean asked once they were both settled in.

"About what?"

"Your dream."

"No," said Scott bluntly.

The knee-jerk reaction surprised Jean. "Are you sure? It helps to talk."

"Are you channeling a shrink now?"

The comment hadn't meant to be cruel, but it hurt Jean nonetheless. She cast her eyes downwards, not wanting Scott to see the pain in them. "No. That's just what the professor says to me whenever I have a nightmare."

She mustn't have been able to hide her upset successfully because Scott was instantly apologetic. "I shouldn't have said that. I was being stupid. I'm sorry, Jean."

"I wasn't, you know. Channeling." Jean felt the need to defend herself. "My shields are up - even after your nightmare. And talking really does help, most of the time."

"We didn't talk after your nightmare," Scott pointed out.

"That was different."

"How?"

"I didn't want to bother you with my problems."

"Maybe I don't either."

"But I saw your dream. I know what happened."

"I saw your dream, too."

"But I didn't know that. Besides, you already know what it was about if you saw it; it wasn't that hard to figure out."

"I could say the same about mine."

Jean hated to argue with Scott. This wasn't for any sentimental reason but because arguments with him always frustrated her. Normally very easy-going, when he was provoked into a fight, Scott refused to lose. He wouldn't lose his temper, at least not in any way that Jean was used to. Where she would lose control, start to scream and make things fly around, he would remain cool-headed. Scott would argue with logic and stay calm while doing it. It drove Jean crazy, and almost always guaranteed that she lost the fight.

Worst, though, would be the times when Scott stopped talking altogether. Beyond the silent treatment, he ignored her completely while she raged on. Even if she inadvertently - and once purposely - sent something flying at him, he only paid enough attention to duck out of the way.

His silences weren't for lack of comeback, or because Jean had proven her point - and she knew this because Scott's thoughts were occasionally loud enough for her to hear them after he stopped speaking. Once, Jean had made the mistake of responding to his mental retort. That had resulted in the closest Jean had ever seen Scott to fury. He now reinforced his mental shields whenever they fought.

Jean could feel the frustration welling up inside her now. "No, you can't. My dream was obviously about what happened with Annie. I have no idea what your dream was about beyond a fire and falling. And I don't know because you don't tell me anything. _Ever_. I've known you for two months now and the only thing I know about you is that you're my age, your parents are dead and you've been at the Institute for a year and a half. Other than that, you've told me nothing."

Once she was finished her speech, Jean remembered that she was supposed to be comforting Scott, not yelling at him. Still, she maintained her glare as best she could. She was right and she wasn't going to back down.

Scott didn't say anything for so long that the silence became decidedly uncomfortable; Jean was certain that this was one of the times she would be the recipient of Scott's version of the silent treatment. She'd begun to wonder what she was supposed to do - stay in his room all night staring at him or admit defeat and slink out - when Scott surprised her by speaking.

"I play pool."

"What?"

"I play pool. You said I don't tell you anything about myself, so I'm telling you I play pool. I'm really good, actually."

It wasn't exactly what Jean had been expecting, but it was a start. She lay down, using her arm as a pillow and her head tilted back so that she could watch Scott as he continued.

"There's a table downstairs. I don't play much anymore - no one to play with. Professor Xavier can't, obviously, Ororo doesn't know how to play and Logan refuses to play with me anymore because I always beat him. I play by myself sometimes, but the professor doesn't like it when I spend too much time down there alone."

"Do you think you could teach me sometime?" Jean asked.

Scott twisted to look at her - he had been staring at the ceiling during his speech. "Yeah. I guess."

They lay in comfortable silence. Jean had closed her eyes and was drifting back to sleep when Scott spoke again.

"Am I really that bad?"

"What?" Jean blinked at him sleepily. He didn't seem to notice that he'd woken her.

"Am I really as bad as you say? Do I really tell you _nothing_?" Scott actually sounded worried.

"You're not _that_ bad." It didn't come out exactly the way Jean wanted it to, but she was too tired to think of a way to make it sound gentler. "You do tell me things, I guess, but it's always about what's happening now. You almost never say anything about before you came here, or even before _I_ came here. You know everything about me: about Annie, about the hospital, about my family. And it seems like I know nothing about you."

"I don't do it on purpose. I just don't like talking about myself much," Scott explained.

"I've noticed," Jean said without opening her eyes.

"I'll try not to do it so much if it bothers you," he promised.

"Thanks."

"Jean?" he asked a minute later.

"Yeah?"

"Are you falling asleep?"

"Uh huh."

"You can't do that," Scott said.

"Okay." She didn't mean it; it just seemed to be the easiest thing to say.

"You have to get up and go back to your own room."

"No."

"Come on, Jean," Scott said insistently.

Her only response was to pull the covers over her head to block him out.

"Jean - " There was a note of warning in Scott's voice, which Jean ignored. Then it seemed as if he gave up, and Jean knew no more.

__

End Part Three


	4. Lessons

**Nightmares  
Part 4/?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.**

**Posted: Wednesday, July 16, 2003**

**Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. Chapter Four: in which Jeans learns more about Scott and Scott learns to help Jean.**

**Special thanks goes to Jen, who was kind enough to beta this part for me. If you haven't already done so, go read her stories, _First Sight_ and _Snow_ under her pen name, Jen1703, and to Wen, who not only looked at this part, but commented on the first three parts as well.**

**I have Support Services. If you want to receive notices of when my news stories/parts are posted, add me to your Author Alerts. Even if you don't have Support Services, you'll receive them.**

Her first few days at the Institute, Jean spent trying to learn everything she possibly could about the only other teenager at Xavier's. It wasn't an easy task and required all the subtlety she could muster. (It didn't occur to her until years later that at fourteen she had all the subtlety of a bright flashing neon sign with flashing lights in Vegas.)

Professor Xavier was the best source for information, as he was only too happy to talk about his first student. From him, Jean learned such incredibly important things as Scott's favourite food and the type of music he liked.

From Ms. Munroe, she learned that Scott did not have a girlfriend.

"I wasn't going to ask that," Jean stammered, blushing furiously and lying through her teeth. She thought she had been clever, asking about his friends, who they were, what their names were, but somehow the weather witch had guessed her motives.

"Of course not. I did not say that you did," her teacher said. The sympathetic smile offset the slightly patronizing tone. "I was just telling you that he doesn't have a girlfriend, since you were so interested in his friends. Though I would suggest in the future you ask Scott himself."

Properly rebuked, it took Jean a few days to work up the courage to ask Professor Xavier anything else. Evidently Ms. Munroe had talked to him because instead of bragging like a proud parent as he had before, he said, "Why don't you ask him? It's four o'clock; he's home from school."

"It's okay," Jean said hurriedly, heat rising to her cheeks. "Never mind."

Ignoring her, he broadcasted, _*Scott, could you please come to my study immediately?*_

Seconds later Scott peaked through the door. "Is something wrong?" he asked and Jean struggled to get her blushing under control before he noticed.

"Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to speak to you," Professor Xavier assured him. "You don't need to get so worried, Scott." Jean realized Scott _had_ sounded almost panicked, and had responded very quickly to the call.

Now he seemed to relax, the tension released from his shoulders. Annoyance replaced the worry. "You didn't have to do that. I thought something happened."

"I'm sorry, Scott," the elder man said. To Jean he added, "I forget that Scott doesn't like me to use my telepathy with him unless it's an emergency."

"You don't like telepaths?" Jean asked. She despaired at what she would do if the answer were yes. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

"I don't mind telepaths, I just don't think anyone should go around in other people's minds without their permission unless it's an emergency," Scott said.

The words were aimed at the professor and not her, but they still made Jean feel guilty. She slunk down in her chair and refused to look up as Scott made his way across the room and sat down beside her.

"Sometimes it can't be helped. Your thoughts are loud; you project," Professor Xavier rebuffed mildly.

"I don't even remember what I was thinking about, sir," Scott said. "I can't see how I could have been thinking loud."

"I did not mean a few minutes ago, Scott, nor was I referring to you exclusively. I was speaking in general terms."

Scott's thoughts might not have been loud before, but they were gaining force now. Jean tried to push them aside without much success.

"In general, yes, I guess you can't block out everything all the time." _*But it doesn't mean I have to like it.*_ Jean flinched minutely as the first concrete thought leaked through her shield.

"Besides," Scott continued, "we weren't talking about it in general, we were talking about you calling me just now. I wasn't projecting then."

"No, you weren't," Professor Xavier admitted. "But I was also not reading your thoughts, I merely projected my own into your head."

"I was just down the hall. It would have been easier just to call me," Scott argued.

"I did call you."

By now the professor's mind was beginning to intrude upon her own. From him, Jean did not receive complete thoughts, but rather half-formed images and ideas. He was trying to prove a point and was doing so by leading Scott into making it himself.

"You know I meant out loud, with your voice."

"But how would I know you were just down the hall, within hearing range, if I didn't seek you out with my mind?" the professor asked.

Scott's thoughts made it clear that he would have preferred Professor Xavier to have searched for his location before calling him vocally rather than what the professor had actually done, irrational as it might be. However, what his spoken reply would have been, Jean never knew because she simply couldn't take it anymore.

"Stop!" she cried out shrilly. Her head was bent forward, fingers clutching her temples, and she was close to tears. "Just stop!"

Immediately Professor Xavier's presence disappeared from her head, as if suddenly remembering Jean's difficulties controlling her powers and putting a clamp on his own mind to compensate. Scott was not so quick to disappear. She could feel brief flare of alarm from him even as he asked, "Jean? Jean, are you okay? What's wrong?"

"It's my fault," Professor Xavier said. "I failed to notice Jean's shields were not as steady as I would like them to be. It has been a long day and it is only natural that they are more strained as the day goes on. Jean, it's all right now. You can relax."

Except she couldn't. Jean felt her shields grow stronger - the professor's doing - but they weren't enough to banish Scott. If anything, he had become more anxious at the professor's words and the stronger emotions translated into a stronger connection with Jean.

"Jean?" Scott asked again. _*Please don't be hurt.*_

Please don't be hurt. It wasn't an accusation of attention-seeking or the terrifying concern about what to do with the genuinely, certifiably crazy girl. It wasn't even a disgusted, _*What's wrong with **her**?*_ that she'd received from so-called friends. Scott was actually concerned. For _her_. It was all too much for Jean.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry."

Scott's confusion increased and he looked to the professor for help.

"Jean," Professor Xavier said, soothingly but with a mental nudge to reinforce his words so that she would listen. "It's okay. Just relax."

"What's wrong with her, Professor?" Scott asked.

"I didn't mean to. It was an accident," Jean continued, ignoring Professor Xavier and concentrating on Scott. "I know you hate it and I tried not to - I really did - but I couldn't help it."

It wasn't much of an explanation - or even any explanation at all - but somehow Scott got an idea of what she was talking about. Jean suspected she was projecting.

"Jean, I wasn't talking about you. You don't count. You're just learning and you have trouble with your shields and I _know_ you don't mean to read my thoughts."

Dimly, Jean was aware of the professor trying to tell her something mentally, but she was able to block him and concentrate solely on Scott. Despite Professor Xavier's best efforts, they were still connected enough for Jean to know that Scott was telling her the absolute truth. It had never crossed his mind that she might misconstrue his discussion with Professor Xavier. In his mind there was a clear distinction between a trained telepath, such as the professor, and one who was just learning, like herself.

Scott understood what it was like to lose control of his powers, to hurt someone accidentally, having done so himself on previous occasions. He would never blame Jean for losing control and accidentally use her powers on him. Although he didn't like it and wished it could be avoided, Scott couldn't blame her.

Relief flooded through her at the same time Professor Xavier's voice finally broke through. *_Let go, Jean._*

*_What?_*

*_Let go. You panicked and are still holding onto Scott's mind. Relax yourself and concentrate on your shields._*

It was true. She could feel that Scott was not as anxious as before, seeing that Jean herself was no longer on the edge of hysterics and Professor Xavier didn't seem overtly worried. It also helped that everything in the room had stopped rattling ominously as Jean regained control over her telekinesis. Scott knew that Jean and Professor Xavier were conversing telepathically and wished they would speak aloud so that he could know what was happening. Scott's glance went from Professor Xavier, who was ignoring his first student and focusing entirely on Jean, to Jean herself, no longer huddled over in a ball but with her hands still at her head and her eyes squeezed closed to shut out the world around her.

*_Let go,_* the professor said a third and final time. Together, they put up her blocks and Scott faded away.

Cautiously, Jean opened her eyes, her hands dropping to her lap. Scott was still looking at her and she could read his concern easily even without seeing his eyes. It was in the way his lips were pressed together thinly, in the way his knuckled were white from clenching the arms of the chair too hard, the way he was all but holding his breath, waiting to hear from her.

Jean tried to give him a weak smile but could only manage to move the corners of her mouth up for half a second before they fell again.

Scott turned to Professor Xavier. "Sir?"

"Jean's powers flared up and overwhelmed her for a minute," the professor explained. "It was my fault. I was too caught up in her other studies and neglected to give enough attention to her shielding today."

"Is she going to be okay?" Scott asked, then to Jean he repeated, "Are you okay?"

Jean nodded, not trusting herself with words, while Professor Xavier said, "She will be fine. I would like to continue our shielding lessons, though, so if you would please excuse us, Scott."

At the dismissal Scott stood, but did not leave.

"Yes?" the professor asked expectantly.

"Shielding - what is it, exactly?"

"Just as it sounds. It's shielding one's mind from the thoughts of others.

"And can it work both ways?"

Jean thought she had an inkling of what Scott meant, but the professor wasn't following.

"Pardon?"

"I mean, can just a telepath shield or can anyone?" The words came out quickly as if Scott was trying to get them all out before he changed his mind. A faint rosy flush, barely noticeable, appeared on his cheeks directly below his glasses.

"No, it's easier for someone with psychic powers, but anyone can learn, telepath or not. Ororo and Logan both have learned to construct commendable shields."

"Could I?" Scott asked bluntly.

Professor Xavier fixed his gaze upon Scott, impressing Jean with his ability to meet the boy's eyes even behind his glasses. "It will be very difficult, Scott."

"So? It isn't fair to Jean that I'm the only one who can't shield. She'll have to work twice as hard whenever she's around me." It went unspoken that it would be even more unfair to Scott not to be given a chance to defend himself against Jean's unwitting attacks. Even after knowing him for less than a week, even if she hadn't witnessed his argument with Professor Xavier a short while ago, Jean knew how much Scott valued his privacy.

"Can he?" Jean asked hopefully. Whatever his motives, Scott had been right when saying she would be better off if he learned how to shield.

"I was not trying to argue against Scott learning how to shield, simply trying to impress how difficult it will be. Don't think that you'll be able to leave my office today with the ability to block out Jean. I've been working with her for over two years now, even if it hasn't been as often as I would like, and she still has difficulties, as we witnessed earlier."

"I understand, but I still want to learn," Scott said.

Professor Xavier nodded, seeming satisfied. "Very well. Sit down and we will begin."

End Part Four


	5. Ice Cream, Chocolate Milk and Memories

**Nightmares  
Part 5/?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.**

**Posted: Tuesday, July 29, 2003**

**Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. Chapter Five: Jean and Scott relive some painful memories. **

**Special thanks goes to Jen, who was kind enough to beta this part for me. If you haven't already done so, go read her stories, _First Sight_ and _Snow_ and her new one, _Evolutionary Beginnings,_ under her pen name, Jen1703, and to Wen, who not only looked at this part, but commented on the first three parts as well.**

**I have Support Services. If you want to receive notices of when my news stories/parts are posted, add me to your Author Alerts. Even if you don't have Support Services, you'll receive them.**

Having nightmares was beginning to be a bad habit of Jean's. Scott shook her awake for the second night in a row.

"I was doing it again," Jean said despondently after they went through the now routine 'Are you all right?' conversation. "I really did try."

"So did I," Scott said. "I'm just not that good at shielding yet. Especially not when I'm asleep."

"It's not like I'm any better. It's the fourth time I've done this in two weeks!" It was just so frustrating. She was trying - she really _was_ trying - but she couldn't stop herself from projecting.

"The Professor'll be back tomorrow. He'll be able to help." Scott was trying to be reassuring but Jean was too wrapped up in self-reproach to pay him heed. Sensing that, he tried to pull her out of her misery (and, incidentally, out of her bed). "C'mon," he said, tugging her hand.

"Where are we going?" Jean asked, allowing herself to be pulled up.

"The kitchen. Ororo's got some ice cream stashed away. I know where it's hidden."

Pausing only to put her slippers on, Jean followed him downstairs. "Will she mind?"

"We'll just replace it in the morning," said Scott.

Morals were one thing, ice cream another. Jean did not worry further about how Ororo would act when she found out her students had taken her ice cream. Especially not once Scott had opened the freezer and moved the contents around to reveal the ice cream hidden at the back.

"Black Cherry! My favourite."

Scott made a face at her choice and reached behind for a second container for himself, Heavenly Hash. Jean got out the bowls and spoons and soon they were seated at the table, big helpings of ice cream in front of them.

"So are you mad?" Jean asked finally, licking her spoon to cover as she snuck a peak at Scott out of the corner of her eye.

"Mad at what?"

"At me. Because I keep giving you nightmares."

"Not mad, not really. Tired, though." Jean was too. It was bad enough getting the nightmares in the first place, but now that Scott was waking up with her, they would end up talking or doing other things before trying to fall back asleep.

"Do you always get so many nightmares?" he asked.

Jean played with her ice cream, mixing it into a slurry slush. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "No, not usually. It's just - Annie died four years ago. The anniversary's coming up next week."

"That's why you've been dreaming about the accident." It wasn't a question, but Jean nodded just the same.

"That's what my nightmares are usually about. Annie…the accident…you know." He did know. From a few off-hand comments Scott had made, Jean knew someone, probably Professor Xavier, had told him the story. It was the first time they actually talked about it, not just alluded to it, though.

"You watched her die," Scott said. He was sympathetic, but not cloyingly so. Jean suspected he'd been in a similar situation.

"I _felt_ her die," Jean corrected. Scott looked up and Jean thought she met his eyes behind the glasses. "I thought I was dying, too. It was too much, and I went catatonic. No one knew what to do, what was wrong, until Professor Xavier came along. He saved me."

"He gave me a home and gave me back my sight," Scott said, his tones bordering or reverential. Then he smiled wryly, "Not quite the same as giving you back your life."

"He saved us both,," Jean said quietly, not wanting to detract from Scott's gratitude for the professor. The two scenarios might not seem the same to some, but Jean knew they were equally important to Scott.

Scott shrugged, clearly not convinced. "If you say so."

"I do," Jean said firmly, hoping it would bring an end to the disagreement. "It's not really that much different."

"Except you watched - I mean felt - your friend die and would still be catatonic if it weren't for Professor Xavier. How am I supposed to compete with that?"

He was missing the point completely; it wasn't supposed to be a competition. Beginning to lose her patience and temper, Jean argued, "You aren't. It isn't about that at all. And it's not like you haven't watched someone die, either." Just because Scott never told her anything didn't mean Jean hadn't made a few well-educated guesses. She took a gamble. "What about the fire?"

When Scott stood up so abruptly that he would have pushed the table back a couple inches if it were any lighter, Jean thought she had blown it with the reference to his nightmare. But instead he just went to the fridge and poured himself a glass of chocolate milk. After taking a big drink, he said, "It was a crash, not a fire."

"What?" Jean asked dumbly. She was still marveling over the fact that he hadn't run off like he had in the past when she was being only half as intrusive as she was tonight.

"Our plane crashed. When my parents . . . my brother . . . died," he swallowed the word painfully, "it was because our plane crashed. It wasn't a fire."

Jean didn't know what to make of the information. "Oh," was all she said. Scott took it as an invitation to expound.

"Well, it was a fire, too, but it was on the plane. There was a storm. My dad tried to climb above it, but lightning hit the plane before we got high enough. That's how the fire started. That's what you saw, wasn't it?"

It was by far the most talkative Jean had ever seen Scott and she marveled at the change in the boy. He was not animated, quite the opposite in fact. He was speaking dully and refused to look in her direction. But for once his reluctance was not keeping him from speaking. He trailed off now and Jean wasn't sure whether to encourage him to keep going or if by speaking up she'd just remind Scott of her presence and he would clam up again.

"There weren't enough parachutes. I guess you saw part of that, too. It didn't really matter in the end. My parents gave the parachutes to me and Alex, my brother. Mine caught fire after we jumped. When I woke up, they told me that I was the only one who wasn't dead.

"So, technically, I haven't watched anyone die," he concluded, closing the fridge door.

Jean stared at him. The fury she had been feeling towards him earlier, which had faded when he started to explain, was now coming back. "You - I don't believe you. Has anyone ever told you that you're such a - an _idiot_!" Inwardly she winced as soon as the words were out. Jean was hopeless at insults, especially when she was angry.

It was Scott's turn to stare. Her face flushed, but beginning to calm down, Jean said, "This isn't some stupid contest to see who has it worse." The humour of the fact that neither one of them was claiming to have had the worst luck, like most people would, struck Jean momentarily, but she pushed it away again. "So you didn't technically see them die, so what? It was still your entire family." She stopped herself from saying, "That's much worse than me," as it would completely undermine her point that it wasn't a competition.

"What do you want me to do?" Scott asked. "Go around telling everyone and anyone who'll listen that they should feel sorry for me because I'm an orphan? I'm not the only one out there. Lots of people have it worse off than me."

"So what? You've still had a tough time. I'm not supposed to sympathize with you just because you haven't had the worst time out of everyone in the whole entire world?"

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I don't want anyone's pity," Scott said coolly.

"I'm not pitying you. I'm trying to be understanding! Stop feeling so sorry for yourself."

"Sorry for myself?" Scott asked incredulously. "I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm not anywhere close to feeling sorry for myself."

"You are too feeling sorry for yourself, Scott Summers," Jean yelled stubbornly. The choice of words hadn't been the best, but she would try to explain rather than ever take them back and admit she was wrong. "So you aren't going around telling everyone your sob story, so what? Instead you're going around _refusing_ to tell anyone what happened, even when they ask, which is even worse! You're making a big deal about it by not making a big deal about it."

"_What_?" Scott couldn't even begin to understand what Jean was trying to say.

"You heard me. You're making this into a big secret and pretending that it doesn't matter at all. But it does matter. You should wake up and realize it! Stop being so stupid about it!"

"_What_ is going on here?" Ororo Munroe did nothing so dramatic as announce her presence - and obvious displeasure - with a peal of thunder. But then, she hardly needed to. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she looked very put out at having been woken from her sleep.

Scott and Jean both looked at her guiltily, their argument forgotten.

"What are you doing up?" Ororo asked when no explanation was offered.

"We couldn't sleep," Jean said.

"I find arguing so loudly that you wake the entire mansion rarely leads to lulling yourself to sleep," Ororo pointed out.

Both Scott and Jean looked embarrassed. "Sorry," Scott said while Jean added, "We'll try to keep it down next time."

"Try not to have loud fights at three o'clock in the morning," said Ororo. "What were you arguing about?"

"Nothing," Scott said. "Well, nothing important. It was just a disagreement that got a little out of hand."

Jean wondered if that meant he was no longer angry with her. The interruption had given her enough time to calm herself down and now she was feeling a little guilty about losing her temper so easily. Scott, on the other hand, rarely lost his temper like she did so Jean had no idea whether time would cool him down too, or if he was still upset.

Seeming to accept Scott's explanation, Ororo glanced past them at the table and asked, "Did you enjoy the ice cream?"

Jean had forgotten that it was Ororo's ice cream they had eaten and looked guiltily at her empty bowl. "We were going to replace it."

"First thing in the morning," Scott said.

"I'm sure you were. You finished it then?"

"Well," Scott drew out the word, "not exactly."

Ororo raised an eyebrow to show she knew just what "not exactly" meant. "Then I would suggest, if you are finished 'not exactly' finishing my ice cream, that you head back upstairs to bed and try sleeping again, this time in separate rooms."

Scott started, thinking Ororo was referring to the other night when they'd slept in the same bed. At least, that's what Jean herself mistakenly assumed at first. Later, she realized their teacher had probably been talking about them being up together right then, not anything that happened the previous week. No one else knew about that; Scott had been so paranoid that he'd woken Jean at the crack of dawn just so no one would walk in on them by accident.

Ororo turned to Scott, thus missing Jean's own guilty expression, and asked, "What is it?"

"Nothing," Scott said.

Ororo pursued her lips, plainly showing that she thought as much of "nothing" as she did of "not exactly". However, she chose not to pursue the subject, opting to go back to sleep instead. "Anything else that needs to be discussed can be done in the morning," she said, making an executive decision. "Bed. _Now._"

As they contritely followed Ororo back upstairs to bed, a subdued Jean, hoping Scott wasn't mad and would answer, asked Scott the question that had been at the back of her mind since the beginning of their fight. "How come you finally told me about the crash?"

"Because you told me about Annie," was the succinct answer.

Jean was puzzled. "But you already knew about her. Why was tonight any different? What changed things?"

"I may have known about her," Scott admitted, "but it wasn't the same. Tonight, _you_ told me."

With that they parted ways, leaving Jean to ponder Scott's words.

End Part Five


	6. Breakdown

A/N - So, yeah. It's been awhile. A long while. I haven't watched the show in... well, it's been a long time since I updated this. But not to worry--I'm not about to disappear for another three and a half years. The story is now finished; I only have to do some editing. There shouldn't be more than a week between parts from now until the epilogue. There will be more about my absence in the author's notes in the epilogue.

The worms and bathtub comment was in honour of a really good Jean and Scott fic that I had a fun time searching for last night. But it's called "Worms" and it's by joanofarc15 here on the site.

Posted: Sunday, January 31, 2007 -- Happy New Year's, everyone!

I do not own the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.

* * *

**Nightmares  
Part Six: Breakdown**

Ororo took Jean and Scott out the next morning to replace the ice cream they'd finished. Because they were out, they missed Professor Xavier and Logan's actual homecoming.

Instead, the professor wheeled out to meet them when they returned to the Institute, loaded down with groceries.

"Professor!" Scott exclaimed, partially surprised, but mostly delighted. Jean was only now, after months of living with him, beginning to recognize the latter emotion for what it was instead of the standoffish sullenness that those who didn't know Scott usually mistook it for.

"Welcome back, Charles," Ororo said. She had to practically push Jean and Scott—who had both stopped in the doorway when they saw Professor Xavier—out of the way to enter the front hall herself.

"Did you have a good trip?" Jean asked eagerly.

The professor addressed Jean's question first. "Yes, my trip was very productive. I was able to talk to many of my contacts in Washington, and was put in touch with several people who look like they will be a great help to us in the future."

Although mutants weren't officially recognized, or known to the population at large, it wasn't a complete secret, either. Charles Xavier made periodic trips to the capital in hopes that when the time came for mutants to reveal themselves to the world at large, between his political connections and Logan's military ones, they would be in a position to help ease the integration process for mutantkind.

"And what have you been up to while I was gone?"

"Stuff," Scott answered in an uncommunicative manner common to all teenagers and not simply his own unique taciturn nature for once.

"Stuff?" Professor Xavier raised his eyebrows. It was not quite disbelief that coloured the word, but a weary, "That's not an answer. You must have done _something_," tone that was equally common to parents of teenagers all over the globe.

For one brief second, Jean considered telling the professor about the nightmares that had been plaguing her and Scott's sleep, but dismissed the thought again almost immediately. She would rather tell him in private, for one thing, and her parents had drilled enough manners into her for Jean to know better than to bother Professor Xavier with her petty problems when he had just come through the door. It had been a long journey and Jean's problems could wait a few more hours.

So instead she echoed Scott, complete with a shrug identical to his own. "Yeah. Stuff."

Ororo was not as thrown at the monosyllabic answers, having more experience with children and young teenagers. When not at the Institute, she often visited her sister, who had a son only slightly younger than Jean and Scott. "Stuff," she repeated, "including helping me to put away the groceries. Hurry up or the ice cream will melt."

The professor followed them into the kitchen where they started to put away the groceries, looking on at some of their purchases skeptically (Ororo, no longer cranky after having a full night's sleep, had given in to their pleas for more than just ice cream).

"Where's Logan?" Scott asked when they were finished.

"The Danger Room," Professor Xavier answered. "He went straight there. He's been complaining that he hasn't had a proper workout since he left."

"Hopefully he'll work out some of his aggressions before our next session together," Ororo said. Her tone was mild, but everyone could hear the optimistic hope. Jean was in complete agreement, maybe even more so, since the Wolverine seemed to feel that in order to not be soft on the kids, he had to work them even harder. Even Scott, who to a certain degree _enjoyed_ sessions in the Danger Room, seemed to agree with Ororo's sentiment.

Only Professor Xavier, who had never had to endure the torture Logan called training sessions, found the comment amusing. "Logan did mention he planned to start Danger Room sessions again immediately. He was afraid you had 'gone soft' in his absence."

"We're going to die," Jean said, without—in her mind, at least—hyperbole.

After lunch, Scott sought her out. It was the first time they'd had a minute alone all day. "I'm sorry about last night," he said.

"Sorry about what?" Jean asked.

"Our fight. Last night. I'm sorry about it."

"But you didn't do anything. What are you saying sorry for?"

"I had to have done something," said Scott. "You were pretty angry with me."

The way he worded it made Jean stop. "You don't know what you did?" she asked slowly.

Scott took it the wrong way and became even more defensive. "You weren't exactly explaining yourself very clearly. How am I supposed to know what I did wrong if all you were doing was yelling at me?"

"You didn't do anything wrong. It was my fault. I shouldn't have yelled at you. I should be the one apologizing," Jean said.

"It wasn't my fault?" Scott asked, not wholly believing her. Beneath his glasses, his eyebrows quirked in disbelief.

Jean shook her head, unsuccessfully trying to shake out the memories of their fight last night. "Not at all. I was just being stupid. I'm the one who should be sorry."

He nodded slightly, and Jean took that as an acceptance of her apology. "Why were you mad at me anyway?"

"No reason. Or at least no good reason," Jean amended, slightly embarrassed. "It was tired. I haven't been sleeping lately—but I guess you already know that. I just kinda… lost it."

"I must have done something to set you off," Scott persisted. Why he couldn't just let it go like anyone else would have, Jean didn't know.

"I guess it was because you were acting like a, I don't know, a martyr or something. Like all these bad things had happened to you, but it didn't matter and you couldn't complain, because things could be worse and have been worse for other people."

Almost like what he was doing now, Jean realized suddenly. He couldn't let Jean accept all the responsibility. There had to be something he did to set her off. Sometimes he acted like the weight of the whole world rested on his shoulders and he had to bear the burden for it all.

"And?" Scott clearly expected there to be more.

"And? And it's annoying! Not everything's your fault. You don't have to act like what happens to you doesn't matter. Everyone else's feelings aren't automatically more important than your own."

"I don't do that," Scott said stiffly. His face was harder than a mask and Jean knew that if she were to reach out, she'd find his mind clamped down, too.

"Yes, you do," Jean said, trying to ignore this uncharacteristic desire to use her gifts. Usually she just wished they didn't exist. Shaking her head to dislodge the thought, she continued. "You do it all the time. You refuse to tell me what happened to your family because you don't think it matters."

"I didn't refuse, I just hadn't got around to telling you because you didn't need to know," Scott corrected.

"And what made you change your mind last night?"

"Like I said last night, you told me about Annie. It was only fair."

"Well, how about today?" she blustered, since she'd almost forgotten that. "Why'd you apologize? We've fought before, lots. You never apologize."

"I always apologize when I'm wrong." It was probably the most arrogant thing she'd heard Scott say to date, but she ignored it for the time being because she wasn't going to let him sidetrack her from her original point.

"And why did you automatically assume you were wrong?" Jean asked.

Scott's mask cracked, but the emotion underneath was just about the last one Jean had expected. It looked like embarrassment, but that simply couldn't be. She had to be misreading him, and for the second time in five minutes, she found herself wanting to reach out with her mind. For the second time, she clamped down on that impulse.

"It was Logan's idea," he mumbled.

"Logan? What does Logan have to do with it? When did you even get the chance to tell him about it? Isn't he still in the Danger Room?" Jean asked.

"He is. I didn't tell him, not about this in particular. It was more in general. It was a long time ago, before you even came. He was apologizing to Ororo about something one day and I asked him what he'd done. He said he was damned if he knew, but sometimes it was better just to apologize."

Especially when it came to women. It was unspoken, but clearly implied.

Jean couldn't help it' she started to giggle. The same sleep-deprived state that had sent her into fits of rage the night before made her find this hilarious today. She could just picture the gruff, no-nonsense Wolverine fumbling, trying to explain to Scott about women's "irrationalities".

"It isn't funny," Scott said.

"Yes it is," Jean argued, still giggling.

Scott just shook his head and left. She could almost hear him muttering "Women!" underneath his breath, even if she knew he wasn't talking.

* * *

_  
She is Jean._

_She is Annie._

_She is playing. Jean is fourteen, Annie is ten, but it makes no difference. Not now, not here. She is laughing, giggling. Everything is right in the world._

_The ball lands in the middle of the street._

_She looks both ways. There is nothing coming so she runs out and grabs the ball. She holds it up triumphantly._

_She is hit._

_She is screaming. (Who is screaming?)_

_There is blood. There is pain. Lots of pain. The pain is everywhere, the pain wont' stop. It hurts. Ohgod,ohgod,ithurts. _

_The car is gone._

_Sobbing, uncontrollable. (Who?) Someone is pulling her off. (Someone is being pulled off of her?) Pain, pain, pain. _

_She is dying. _

_There are still screams. Is she screaming? Whose blood is it? Who is feeling the pain?_

_She is dea-_

"Wake up!" Scott cried, jerking Jean out of her nightmare.

Sobbing, she flung herself into his arms before she fully knew what she was doing. He half-held her, awkwardly, his whole body stiff. But Jean neither noticed nor cared. She was too happy to have a warm body next to her—not cold, not dying, not bleeding, not dead.

"It's okay, Jean," he said in what was probably supposed to be comforting tones but sounded more bewildered than anything else. "You're okay."

"It happened again," Jean sobbed. "Annie got hurt again. And then I died."

"You didn't die. You aren't dead. It was a dream."

"No, it really happened," insisted Jean.

"I'm going to go get the professor," he said, trying to untangle himself from her arms.

"No!" Jean cried, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and refusing to let go. She couldn't face the idea of being alone right then. Alone, the nightmares came. Alone, she felt Annie die over and over and over again. Alone, she had been brought to the hospital and alone, the doctors looked over her and pronounced themselves stumped and left her alone, catatonic and unresponsive and alone.

"He'll know what to do," Scott said with a little more urgency. He attempted to pry her fingers open, but Jean only clung harder.

"Don't leave me alone," she pleaded.

"Ororo?" Scott suggested, almost desperately. "Logan?"

Jean shook her head, which was buried in Scott's chest. "Please don't go."

"Okay," he said, and she felt him relax slightly beneath her grip. He even attempted to hold her, one hand to the back of her head, the tips of his fingers resting lightly in her hair. The other hand was around her own, still clutching at his pyjama shirt that was rapidly becoming a wet mess of tears and snot.

Jean couldn't tell how long they stayed like that, but eventually she relaxed her grip on him. Her tears slowed down, but were replaced by hiccoughs. Even those eventually faded out. While her terror wasn't fading, per se, it was being replaced by drowsiness. Jean hadn't had a full night's rest in over a week. What little sleep she did get was constantly interrupted by nightmares. Scott's steady heartbeat, which was right up against her ear, was calming. She was feeling very comfortable. Safe.

Warm.

It was Jean's last thought until morning when she woke up and found her head still resting on Scott's chest. His arm was curled around her protectively.

Jean was mortified.

The plan was to crawl out of bed without waking Scott, but as soon as she moved, he was awake.

They both sat up, putting some distance between them immediately. Scott fiddled with his glasses, checking that they were still secure. "Are you feeling better?" he asked.

Jean buried her face in her hands, remembering her behaviour the previous night. Of course Scott would have to bring it up instead of pretending it had never happened like she wanted him to.

"I am _so_ sorry," she said, her voice somewhat muffled even to her own ears because she refused to remove her hands from her face. She couldn't look at him. She wasn't sure how she was ever going to face him again. "You must hate me."

"Because of your nightmare?" Scott sounded puzzled, but it had to be out of politeness (never mind that Scott was never polite to spare feelings).

"Because I acted like a stupid ten year old who was too afraid to be left alone for three seconds. I can't believe I did that."

"Jean… Jean," the second time he was a little more commanding. "Aren't you going to look at me?

"No."

"Okay, _now_ you're being stupid."

"What?" Whether it was the expected response or not, it did cause Jean to look up at him now, only seconds after silently vowing she would never face him again.

"You heard me. This is being stupid. Last night—well, last night I don't think you ever really woke up. Half the things you said didn't make sense."

"Last night I wouldn't let you leave my room for three seconds to go get the professor, even though he can always help," said Jean.

"Last night you also said something about worms and a bathtub," Scott said.

For the second time in their conversation, Jean was almost struck dumb. "What? I didn't say anything like that."

Scott took that as proof of his point. "See? You were still half asleep. I don't think that should count."

Why Scott refused to admit the sheer embarrassment of it all and continued to shrug it off, Jean didn't know. It couldn't be to spare her feelings, since Scott never did that. But nothing else made sense. He couldn't possibly actually believe what he was saying.

"Did I say anything else?" Jean asked, dreading that the answer was yes. What she did remember was enough; she fervently hoped there wasn't any more.

"Like what?" Scott asked.

"I don't know. Anything."

He shrugged. "Not really. Nothing I could make out, at least. Just some mumbling."

"And Professor Xavier didn't come by?" He usually did when she had a nightmare, alerted by his own telepathy.

"No one came. Otherwise I wouldn't have fallen asleep here." Jean could believe that. Judging by how quickly he'd woken up and become alert, she doubted the he'sd had any real sleep. Scott had probably lain half awake all night, jumping at every noise, no matter how quiet.

"I wonder why he didn't come?" Jean mused, still thinking of the professor because it was a much nicer and incredibly safer topic than Scott sleeping on her bed. "Why didn't you call him? Up here, I mean?" She tapped her head.

"I tried, it didn't work," Scott explained. "I'm not very good at it and he was probably sleeping. It was very late."

"Sorry about waking you," Jean frowned. "Again."

Scott shrugged off the apology. "It's not like it's going to happen again, right? I mean the professor's back now and he'll be able to fix it."

"Yeah, the professor'll be able to fix it," Jean echoed. "I'll ask him about it right after breakfast."

"Speaking of breakfast, we should probably get up and get ready," Scott said.

Jean groaned. "But it's only six," she protested.

"Logan mentioned something about an early morning Danger Room session. You don't want to be doing that on an empty stomach." It was said in Scott's responsible voice, which Jean hated simply because he was nearly always right when he used it and just as equally nearly always said something she didn't really want to admit the truth of.

"Fine," Jean said, dragging herself out of bed. "I'll meet you downstairs in the kitchen."

They finished breakfast with a minute to spare before Logan hauled them away into the Danger Room. And although Jean saw Professor Xavier briefly on her way in, with Logan yelling at her to hurry up, she forgot to mention to him the nightmares that she and Scott had been sharing. Nor did she remember again for the rest of the day.

_End Part Six _


	7. The Wolverine

A/N - You have permission to holler at me if I take more than a week to get the next part up. Really. Take this offer to heart, since it's probably the only time an author will ever tell you this.

Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2007

I do not own the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.

* * *

**Nightmares  
Part Seven: The Wolverine**

That Logan had gone straight to the Danger Room didn't surprise Jean. The Wolverine was forever linked to the Danger Room in her mind. In part because he spent so much time there. In part because in the early days, especially, he was the one who led the exercises, pushed them all to their limits and then demanded some more. But mostly because the first time she met him corresponded with the first day she had practiced with the X-Team in the Danger Room.

It was one of the proudest days of her life.

Of course, they hadn't called it the Danger Room at the time. Professor Xavier proudly described it as a state-of-the-art training room, but that didn't trip off the tongue nearly so nicely as the "Danger Room" did. Jean and Scott eventually took to calling it that, mostly as a joke, because it was all too apt a description, but also because it _needed_ a name that was easier to say.

But that, too, came later.

The day in question had started typically. Summer had finally arrived and the school year had ended, so Scott was on vacation. Jean, however, did not have the same luxury. Since Professor Xavier hoped she would be able to return to school with Scott in the fall, she was still receiving catch-up school lessons in addition to her shielding ones. The professor had also started to teach her rudimentary telekinesis, but that require more concentration than Jean normally had.

Still, he persisted, always insisting that control was within her reach, despite the fact that Jean often felt it was never going to happen. Other mutants may be able to control their powers, but Jean Grey was useless at that. If the professor asked her to lift a feather, she'd strip it bare. If he asked her to float a glass of water, she'd not only spill it, but she'd manage to spray the water all over the room, herself and the professor, and any paper documents he'd been foolish enough to leave sitting around.

That day was turning out to be such a day. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Professor Xavier still managed to sit there patiently through everything, never faltering even when Jean soaked him—twice, the second time with water that hadn't even started out in the room.

"One more time, Jean," he said. "Let's try it one more time."

Jean did, because sometimes it was easier to try to control her telekinesis than it was to argue with Professor Xavier. Concentrating with all her might, which usually involved her holding her head at her temples and trying to _push_, she attempted to lift the pillow off the desk using just her mind. It didn't immediately go hurtling to the ceiling or crash down on the desk with more force than a pillow ought to have, so already it was an improvement over her last attempts. Strangely enough, it seemed to take more power to lift it only a few inches off the desk than it did to hurl it across the room.

"Very good, Jean." The professor's voice didn't cut in and wreck her concentration, but instead droned pleasantly in the background. "I want you to hold the pillow there for a little longer. The hard part has already passed. You already have it floating. It isn't any more difficult to keep stationary in the air than it is to keep it stationary on the ground."

She had been straining to keep it afloat, but at his words she realized that he was right. It didn't hurt to keep it up there. Sweat had been running down her head, but it stopped now.

"Good," the professor said. "You're doing very well, Jean. Now I want you to try something else.

"You're holding onto the pillow firmly. I want you to spin it. Just turn it slightly."

It took Jean a minute to figure out how to do it. Turn? She had only ever lifted—or flung.

"Just imagine the pillow is balancing on a narrow column," Professor Xavier instructed, recognizing the cause of her hesitation. "Turn the corner to make it spin around."

Jean tried. It was a different, but she thought she was getting the hang of it. She pictured the pillow, perched on a pivot, turning like a top.

"Not so fast. Try to slow it down." His voice was a little more urgent, a little less soothing.

Something was wrong.

Jean's eyes flew open (she hadn't even realized they were closed) just in time to see the pillow—spinning so fast that it was a roundish blur instead of a square cushion—hurl towards Professor Xavier and smack him in the face.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Jean gasped, her hands flying to her face and covering her mouth in horror.

"That's all right," Professor Xavier said, removing the pillow with as much dignity as possible. "Nothing's broken; I'm not injured. There's a reason we are practicing with pillows, after all."

"I'm sorry," Jean apologized again. "I really didn't mean to."

"I know you didn't. But perhaps we should call it a day. Go outside, it's sunny out. You should be out enjoying it. I believe you'll find Scott at the basketball court."

Jean needed no further encouragement. She scurried away, barely pausing to throw her shoes on. It wasn't just the chance to go outside; she half-feared that if given a chance to reconsider, the professor would realize she needed to practice some more.

Scott was where Professor Xavier had said he'd be: on the basketball court. He was shooting baskets, but when he saw Jean approach, he passed the ball to her. She reflexively brought up her hands and, to her surprise, caught it.

"D'you play?" he asked.

"Not really," Jean admitting, taking a shot at the basket anyway. She missed, but not by so much that Jean felt incredibly stupid in front of Scott. While he went to retrieve the ball, she said, "I'm better at soccer."

"Really?" Scott asked, coming back over to her. He had the basketball, but was holding it under his arm. Jean was pleasantly surprised that he seemed to be taking a genuine interest in her words. But then, Scott tended not to make small talk, and didn't start a conversation just to avoid silence. "There's a nice-sized field in the back. I'm sure we could ask Professor Xavier or Ororo to get a soccer ball next time they're in town."

"Do you play?" Jean asked, exciting over the potential common interest.

Scott shook his head, disappointing her. "No. Soccer's not really my thing. But there's a team at Bayside High. They're pretty good. You should try out when school starts."

"What's it like?"

Jean was beginning to get the hang of reading Scott's body language, even behind the sunglasses. Still, confusion wasn't a difficult emotion to identify, especially when, after scrunching the corners of his mouth, he asked, "The soccer team?"

"No, the school, I mean. Bayside High. What's it like?"

Scott shrugged and took another shot. "I don't know. A school."

The shrugs were also something Jean was coming to recognize. Again, they weren't hard. They usually preceded Scott returning to the semi-taciturn state that was his default setting. Still, Jean persisted, determined to get some information out of him.

"But what are the people like? Do you like it? Do they care that you're, you know, a mutant?" She went after the basketball this time, partially because it was her turn to take a shot and partially to prevent Scott from using the activity as an excuse not to talk.

"They don't know," Scott said.

It shouldn't have been a surprise. When she thought about it, it _didn't_ surprise her. Of the few people who knew about mutants, most of them were either mutants themselves or else were relatives or close friends of one.

"But your glasses," said Jean.

"I tell them I have an eye condition. Most people don't really care, especially if they think you're going to go into some long, boring description with lots of medical and scientific terms. If I tell them I've an eye condition, then they don't bother me about it anymore."

"So the other students are nice then," Jean said, going back to her original concern.

"They're okay. I guess." He turned his head towards the front of the property, his lips pressed together in thought. She doubted it was about school and whether the students there were nice or not. His next words proved her right.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Jean asked, straining her ears to try to figure out what Scott was talking about.

"That noise," said Scott.

Jean heard it now. At first it was just noise, but it was steadily growing louder. It sounded like an engine of some sort.

"I think it's a motorcycle," said Scott.

"A motorcycle?"

"Logan!"

That didn't mean anything to Jean, but she didn't have time to ask because Scott took off towards the garage.

Since Scott had a head start, by the time Jean caught up with him he was in the garage, already greeting the new arrival. Jean came inside as the short, rough-looking man was taking off his helmet and asking, "Is Chuck around?"

"I think he's in his study," Scott said, looking to Jean for confirmation.

She nodded, but didn't say anything, hanging back from this wild man who drove a motorcycle and called the professor "Chuck". He was sizing her up, too, now that Scott had drawn his attention to her, but Jean didn't know what he could be thinking about her. She suppressed the urge to take a step back, confronted with his overpowering stare.

Scott noticed and remembered his manners. "Logan, this is Jean Grey. She's the new student here. Jean, this is Logan, the Wolverine."

Jean offered a small, uncertain smile as a greeting, which seemed to satisfy Logan, because he broke off the impromptu starting contest. He didn't smile, but neither did he look quite so gruff.

"I'm going to go talk to him," Logan said, hanging his helmet from his motorcycle handles. "Nice to meet ya, Red."

"Red?" Jean asked, once he'd gone inside, not sure whether she should feel indignant to be given such a nickname.

"Don't mind him," Scott said, as if he were the telepath instead of her. For a brief second, she worried that she was projecting again, but then realized that she wasn't the only one getting to know her classmate. "Logan gives everyone nicknames."

"Really? What does he call you?"

"Cyke. Short for Cyclops." Because she still looked blank, he was forced to explain further. "You know, my codename. Like Wolverine or Storm."

He started to follow Logan into the house and since Jean didn't want to be alone in the garage, she started to follow Scott. "I've never asked what my codename was," Jean said.

"I don't think you have one yet," Scott said, as they made their way through the laundry room, towards the study.

"Then how do I get one?" Jean asked. "What could I call myself?"

"Think of something that relates to your powers. Like Ororo's called Storm because she has control over the weather and can call up storms. Or I'm Cyclops because my power's in my eyes and when I wear my visor, it's like I only have one eye."

"Ah, Jean, there you are," the professor said, saving her from having to think of a codename then and there. The Wolverine stood beside him, arms crossed over his chest, eying Jean critically once again. "I was just telling Logan here that I believe you're ready to join him and the others tomorrow morning in their training session."

Jean forgot to be unnerved by Logan. Her jaw almost dropped and all she could say was, "Really? You really mean it?"

"Yes, I really mean it," the professor said, smiling at her fondly.

"You think I can actually do it?" she asked, not quite convinced.

"I know you can. Your control has improved admirably since first coming here."

"But I still listen in on people accidentally all the time. Or project when I don't want to. And half the time I try to move something, I can't. Or if I do, I send it flying across the room," Jean protested. Or, she sent it flying right at Professor Xavier. It had only been a few minutes since they finished their last lesson, so there was no way he could have forgotten that already.

"You don't give yourself nearly enough credit," Professor Xavier said quickly, before she could think of more faults. "You are much better than you believe yourself to be."

Jean tried not to look too pleased with the praise. She didn't necessarily agree with him, but it was still nice to hear him say it.

"I believe you are ready for this, Jean. I wouldn't suggest it otherwise."

"You really think I'm ready?" Jean asked plaintively.

"I do," Professor Xavier said in a voice that managed to squelch all further doubts. She wondered for a second if he was doing something to calm her fears, but realized, with a strange new confidence, that she would be able to tell if he were. The fact that he thought her capable of harnessing her powers well enough to train alongside Scott, Ororo and Logan, that made her wonder if he was not, perhaps, right. Maybe she _could_ do it.

"Okay," she said, trying to keep the uncertainty that was threatening to overwhelm her from leaking into her voice. "I'll do it, then."

So it was decided that the next day she would join Scott and Ororo in training.

End Part Seven


	8. The Danger Room

Posted: Sunday, December 30, 2007

I hope the chronology is more or less clear in this part. It skips around a bit. Let me know if it's too confusing.

* * *

**Nightmares  
Part Eight: The Danger Room**

Not surprisingly, Jean could scarcely wait for the next day to arrive. She didn't think she slept for more than ten minutes all night, she was that excited. Every time that she started to drift off, she began to wonder what would happen the next day, how the training would go, whether she would succeed beyond anyone's expectations or fail miserably—and would jerk back into wakefulness.

It also meant that she suffered no nightmares. The trade-off wasn't horrible. Still, it was a bit surprising that she woke so easily when Ororo came in the next morning, even if it was so early that the sun was just peaking into her bedroom window. It was kind of like Christmas. Or the morning of a particularly bad test in school. Jean couldn't decide which one.

"Are you ready, then?" Ororo asked when she saw Jean was sitting up in bed.

"Just let me get dressed." Ororo started to close the door to give her some privacy, but Jean called out, "Wait! What should I wear?"

"Charles has a suit for you. It's down in the change room. Now hurry up. I'll wait for you in the hall."

Jean quickly threw on an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans, briefly wondering why she couldn't go down in her pyjamas. It was one of the few things she missed about being at home, the ability to walk around all day in her pyjamas if she wanted to. The professor didn't think it was proper, but everyone had seen her in the sleepwear before, so Jean didn't see what the big deal was.

"Where's Scott?" she asked Ororo, once dressed. "Are you going to get him up?"

"Scott's already awake and downstairs," Ororo said. "We'll meet him and Logan after we change."

It didn't take long to get ready, even taking into account the full minute she took to stare at her new uniform before she caught Ororo looking at her, trying not to smile.

While Jean had seen the Danger Room before, she had never seen it while in use. The difference was remarkable. Knowing that it was capable of realistic, state-of-the-art holographic programs and seeing it were two different things. She felt like she was stepping into another world.

Unfortunately, she didn't have any time to admire or take a closer look at the room. Scott and Logan had already started.

"You're late," Logan barked.

Ororo did not seem intimidated by him, for which Jean was grateful—and a little awed. "As I told you we would be," she said calmly. "Jean just got her uniform today."

He grunted, but didn't pursue the matter. "Don't be late again," he told Jean.

She nodded, immediately and without any hesitation, which seemed to please him a little. At least, he stopped scowling and started barking out orders at all of them. Ororo and Scott leapt into action, Jean following them a split second later.

Jean quickly came to learn that her first training session was atypical in that Logan gave her a rare break and took it easy, but that knowledge was the furthest thing from her mind at the time. Although she was far from a couch-potato, she was nowhere near as in-shape as Logan, Ororo or even Scott was. She could barely keep up when they first started and the constant running and dodging quickly tired her out. Soon she became sluggish, which was not just dangerous, a lesson she learned quickly when the laser she failed to dodge stung her, but also humiliating when Logan began to snap at her.

"Get a move-on, Red!" "If we were in a real fight, you'd be dead by now!" "Watch out for that tree!" "Stop! You're going to hit Storm!"

Ororo gave her sympathetic smiles whenever she should spare a second, but otherwise did not do anything against Logan's criticisms.

Looking back, Jean knew why. During the session, Logan was field leader. It would be dangerous and unprofessional to question him during a mission. It could cost lives. Although they had safety settings to prevent serious injuries now, the theory was the same. If they started questioning Logan during training, they might slip up and question him during a mission.

Although Jean came to understand this all later, at the time whenever Logan yelled at her, she felt herself falling more deeply into despair. She didn't dare look in Scott's direction, lest she find him laughing at her for being such a dunce. Or, worse yet, find him looking at her in disgust, wondering why he ever bothered with a worthless moron like her.

"Keep your eyes on the ball, Cyke," barked Logan. For the briefest of seconds, Jean was able to feel happy that Logan had found someone other than herself to fault, until he added, "Stop staring at Red."

Scott blasted the ball out of the way and Jean felt mortified. He probably couldn't believe how horrible she was at this. Debris fell towards herself and Ororo. She managed to knock away most of it, but only barely, and a couple of pieces fell through the space between them. One even clipped Ororo on the far side.

The professor had been wrong; she wasn't ready for this. If they were out on a real mission, Jean was just as likely to kill her team mates as help them.

As if to prove her right, at that moment Logan cried, "Look out!"

He jumped up at Jean, shoving her out of the way with surprisingly gentleness, then, claws extended, proceeded to make mincemeat out of the projectile that had almost struck her in the back.

Straightening out and retracting his claws, he said, "That's enough for one day."

The simulation shut itself off and Ororo created a whirlwind to collect the debris and pile it gently in the corner.

Scott came over to help Jean up. She accepted his hand, but refused to look him in the face. Probably for the first time since she'd met him she was glad for his visor. She didn't want to see the look in his eyes.

"Hit the showers," Logan ordered.

Ororo placed a hand on the small of her back and led her back into the locker room. "You did well today, Jean."

Jean didn't respond to the obvious lie; there was nothing she could say. She had done horribly. She was surprised Logan hadn't kicked her out in disgust halfway through. Jean just hoped that they couldn't tell that she was on the verge of tears.

She was able to slip out and leave while Ororo was still in the showers, but didn't have the same luck avoiding Logan and Professor Xavier, who were talking about her just down the hall from the locker rooms.

"Jean." The professor spotted her, keeping her from finding a suitable escape route or hiding spot. "Logan was just telling me about your practice."

Jean closed her eyes, wishing she could stop what was coming next.

"A bit rough around the edges," he said. "But better than most, for a first try. You did good, Red."

Logan actually almost smiled.

* * *

You did good, Red. 

The words reverberated around her head all day. Her lesson with Professor Xavier had been cancelled because of the training session that morning. It wasn't conducive (his words, not hers) to the learning process if she didn't take it easy every once in awhile.

_You did good, Red_.

Jean floated through the rest of the day. At least, it felt like it. She never did check to see if her feet were still planted on the floor, but assumed that someone would have said something if she were actually, really floating.

She'd done it once before, back before she came to the Institute. She and Sara were home alone at the time and her sister had been so freaked out that she refused to speak to Jean for the rest of the week. Her parents weren't much better. _Jean_ hadn't been that much better. None of them knew what was going on, why she was floating, why she could hear other people in her head, why, when it all became too much, things around her started to fly.

_You did good, Red_.

Not so, now. Now, Jean knew what was going on. Better yet, she knew how to _control_ what was going on. The professor believed in her. She'd_proven_ that she could do it, this morning. Even the intimidating Wolverine, whom Scott complained about, whom Ororo told her never lied to spare feelings, admitted she knew what she was doing. More than admitted. _Complimented_ her. In front of Professor Xavier, no less. Who was _proud_ of her.

Her.

Jean Grey, telekinesis extraordinaire.

_You did good, Red_.

She caught up with Ororo after the woman had showered and changed. Jean had forgotten that she was still in the baggy shirt and dirty jeans she'd quickly pulled on that morning, but even now, when she saw Ororo so impeccably groomed that no one would suspect she had been dodging lasers and missiles for an hour, Jean didn't feel embarrassed at her own messy state.

But Ororo smiled patiently as Jean chattered on, giving her a blow-by-blow account of the session, as if she hadn't been there herself. And she agreed with Logan's praise, which made Jean beam even more, if that was possible.

_You did good, Red_.

It was a good thing that the professor didn't hold her lessons that day; she found it hard to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. Her mind flitted from one thing to the next, returning time and again to that glowing memory of the morning's session.

_You did good, Red_.

She had trouble sleeping again that night, despite having exercised hard for longer than she was used to. She was still too wound up. Jean couldn't imagine ever being able to sleep again. It was like Christmas Eve.

_You did good, Red_.

_And like Christmas, she drifts off without knowing it. But unlike Christmas, she dreams not of sugarplums but of flames and cars. _

_And red._

_Red like her hair. Red like fire. Red like blood._

_Red that Scott sees._

_Annie__'__s there, but so is Scott. Jean isn't. She can only watch, she has to watch, but she isn__'__t there. She isn't there as a car comes and hits Annie. She isn't there as flames rise like a phoenix, consuming everything. Hiding Annie (who__'__s dead—she's dead—she's dead and Jean can__'__t hear her this time—she can hear nothing because Annie__'__s gone—gone and dead and never coming back). Hiding Scott. Coming for Jean._

_Who__'__s here now, too scared to move, too scared to breathe, too scared to stop the fire from coming closer to her. Closer and closer._

_She sees Red._

You did good, Red.

_No! She was better than that. She was. She could control herself. She could stop this. She coul__d—_

Jean awoke of her own accord, eyes flying open and her heart beating heavily against her chest. Only after her lungs cried out for air that wasn't stale did she realize that she had stopped breathing. She took in deep breaths, remember the way her mom always said it would calm her. But it did nothing now.

_You did good, Red._

The words.

Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, the praise surfaced. Jean was too busy worrying about Annie's death to wonder why the words had woken her. (And Scott's death? But that wasn't right. He hadn't been there, had he?) It took another few breaths to sort out the memories from dreams, but she realized when she did that Logan's words ringing through her head were calming her.

No, Scott hadn't been there; couldn't have been there. Annie had died years ago. She had only met Scott a few months ago, long after Annie had died.

But yes, Annie was dead. And it didn't matter how many years ago it had been, whenever Jean had her nightmares, she felt the pain of losing her best friend all over again. She could hear the car screeching, she could hear the screams (although she had never, ever been able to figure out who had been doing the screaming, not at the time and certainly not later). She could see the blood, all over Annie and all over herself.

But most of all, she could remember the feeling of being overwhelmed, losing herself. It was a frightening thing to experience. Even the memory of it gave her chills and made her worry about her continuing existence. To not remember who you were, to think you were someone else—there were few things in the world that scared Jean more. For the rest of her life she could never forget that feeling nor shake the fear that it would happen again. Only next time, she knew, Jean Grey would be lost forever.

But not now. Not this time.

In case there were any lingering doubts about Scott being alive, they were quickly dispelled when the door opened. When he saw she was awake and not panicking, as an afterthought he quietly knocked. Looking startled (although how she could tell that between his night goggles and the general darkness of her room and the hall, Jean wasn't sure) he seemed to be torn between entering her room and fleeing now that he realized she was fine. So he hesitated at the doorway.

"Hi," she said, almost shyly.

"You're awake," he noted.

"I'm awake. I woke up on my own."

"Oh." He hesitated a moment longer, clenching and unclenching his fingers into a fist nervously. "I guess I'll go back to bed, then."

He turned to leave.

"Scott?"

Jean bit her lip, uncertain what to say next. She didn't know why she had stopped him from leaving.

"Thanks," she said. When he didn't speak or move, she elaborated. "For coming, I mean. I mean, yeah, I was awake already, but it was really nice and I'm really glad you came in case I was still having a bad dream."

"No problem," Scott said. He smiled slightly, shyly. "It's—well, you'd do the same for me."

"Still…"

"Still," he repeated, nodding. Somehow, without her saying anything, he knew what she meant. Knew how much she appreciated him coming there.

"Good night, Scott," she said.

"Night."

"And thanks."

He smiled. It was small, and incredibly hard to see in the darkness, but it was a smile nonetheless.

* * *

_You did good, Red_. 

Unfortunately, Jean's newfound confidence wasn't enough to drive the nightmares away. Truth be told, even that first night, it hadn't been enough to allow her to fall back asleep, but she'd been too proud, too stubborn, to return to Scott after she'd turned him away.

Jean wasn't sure how long she lay awake the next night and the night after that when dreams of fire woke her up. Her breathing was steady, but no matter how much she told herself it was silly, she still couldn't shake the feeling that they were more than nightmares, that they were something that could actually harm her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw fire and would be startled awake again.

This wasn't working.

Scott was lying awake in bed when she tentatively knocked.

"I couldn't sleep," Jean admitted.

He nodded, knowing what she really meant.

They talked, but not for long and not about anything important, but it still felt right to Jean.

* * *

_You did good, Red_. 

Those were Logan's words, waking her once again. But why she was remembering that tonight, she wasn't sure. She hadn't been dreaming of her first session, she knew that.

No, Jean realized, she hadn't been dreaming at all. Scott had.

He'd woken up by the time she got to his room, but Jean didn't leave. She sleepily shuffled into the room since she'd started to fall asleep again as soon as she realized why she'd woken in the first place.

"Nightmare? You 'kay?"

He nodded—or at least, she thought he nodded. It was hard to tell in the dark. It was even harder to tell because she kept blinking, her eyes staying closed a few seconds longer each time.

She was falling asleep on her feet. It was easier to crawl into his bed than it was to go back to her room. Not that they hadn't done it before, but never before had she fallen asleep _before_ she'd gotten into the bed.

But this time she was too tired to talk, too tired to go back to her own room. It had been too long since she'd had a full night's sleep without interruption. Scott's bed was comfortable and welcoming. She stayed awake long enough to get into his bed, long enough to notice that he wasn't reacting, which was probably a sign that he, too, had gone back to sleep. Maybe the nightmare hadn't been so bad that night.

Maybe they were getting better, period.

With that thought, she lost all grip on consciousness.

And as such, she didn't notice the noises in the hall.

End Part Eight


	9. A Bond

**Nightmares  
Part 9: A Bond **

There was something infinitely embarrassing, mortifying beyond all of Jean's wildest beliefs (and she her imagination could be quite extensive, having had the opportunity to see into other people's minds) about being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and brought down to the Professor's office without having the chance to even change out of her pyjamas.

Especially when factoring in the part where it wasn't her bed she had been pulled out of.

Scott was also there. Jean didn't dare to look at him, but imagined that he was studying the patterns on the office's carpet just as intently as she was.

Professor Xavier still hadn't said anything when Ororo and Logan entered, an urgency to their steps.

"What's going on, Chuck?" Logan demanded.

"I caught Jean in Scott's bed!" the professor exclaimed.

The Wolverine caught them all by surprise when he bluntly said, "So?"

"Logan!" Professor Xavier chided.

"It was harmless. They're good kids."

"But—"

"They're good kids, Chuck," Logan repeated, a little more forcefully. "Red and Cyke wouldn't do anything like that."

"But—" Professor Xavier tried to protest again.

"They didn't do anything."

He sounded so sure of it, which confused Jean. They had broken the rules, she knew that. Even if it was never explicitly said, it was understood that once you went to bed, you were supposed to stay in your own room, not go into another student's bedroom, especially not someone of the opposite sex.

But there was something else, an undercurrent to Logan's words that Jean couldn't quite place at first. Then a fragmented memory, a whisper that hadn't made sense at the time, some giggling girls, the fact that Logan had a keen sense of smell…

Jean did the impossible when she put together what Logan was implying—or rather, not implying—and blushed even more deeply. She now she felt as if she'd spontaneously developed a second mutation: the ability to set her face on fire without doing any damage.

Scott worked it out about the same time she did. "Professor, we didn't—"

"We wouldn't—" Jean joined in at about the same time.

"I mean it wasn't—"

"Scott just—"

"Jean only—"

Now Professor Xavier joined in, almost as flustered as Jean and Scott were. "I wasn't implying—"

"Perhaps," Ororo's voice cut in over the babble, easily heard even though she did not raise her voice, "we should let them explain. Without accusations. I'm know there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for Jean being in Scott's room tonight and I'm sure they will be more than happy to tell to us what it is."

There was another awkward silence in which both Jean and Scott tried to decide which of them was going to start. It didn't quite stretch into the awkward phase, the only thing that Jean could feel grateful for so far tonight. Things had already gone too far past her comfort zone and further embarrassment would be entirely too much for her to cope with. Luckily, Scott spoke just before the silence became unbearable.

"It's my fault, not Jean's," he said, straightening his back. He looked Professor Xavier in the eyes, willing to accept responsibility for the entire fiasco. Part of her Jean's mind was currently screaming at her not to let Scott take all the blame and play the martyr again. It wasn't completely his fault. In fact, it wasn't his fault at all.

Unfortunately, those thoughts were drowned out by a louder, more urgent part of her that insisted she stay quiet, keep out of trouble.

"I had a nightmare," Scott said.

Jean closed her eyes, wincing. Silence overtook the room again.

Eventually, the professor said, "Yes, I know. That's why I was checking on you. But that still doesn't explain what Jean was doing there."

Jean realized that they had been waiting for him to explain further. Like Scott, apparently, she had forgotten that admitting to a nightmare wasn't an explanation enough—they had never got around to mentioning their problem.

"She obviously heard him, just like you, Charles," Ororo said, jumping to conclusions in her attempt to smooth things over. "I'm sure she went in just to see what the matter was."

"But I didn't _hear_ Scott," Professor Xavier said. "Not with my ears, at least."

"Red's a mind reader, too," Logan reminded them.

"Is that what happened?" the professor asked, his gaze swinging over to Jean.

"I didn't mean to." Her voice, as much as she tried to prevent it, came out as a hoarse whisper. "It was an accident."

Professor Xavier sighed, his head dropping down to his hands. He massaged his forehead slightly, suddenly looking very tired. "I'm sure it was, Jean," he started to say, "but—"

"I was trying not to listen. Really, I was. But I couldn't help it."

"That may be the case, but—" the professor tried again.

"It just happened. I just… heard him. And then he heard me. And then it kept happening and we didn't want to tell Ororo or Logan because they couldn't do anything and it would only worry them and you weren't here so we couldn't tell you and it just kept happening and I couldn't stop it."

Jean couldn't help herself. Once she started talking, the words just flowed, refusing to stop. She knew she was a disappointment to the professor; she could hear it in his words. And he'd been so proud of her earlier, boasting about her achievements to Logan, allowing her to join the others in training, cutting back on the number of private sessions they needed together to control her powers.

And now she was letting him down. Now she was letting him know that she wasn't as good with her gifts as he thought her to be. She wasn't in control; she _couldn't_ be in control. It was a simple thing, keeping up a mind shield. Even non-psis, like Scott, Ororo and Logan could manage it.

But she couldn't.

Jean, whose primary mutation was telepathy, couldn't do anything as simple as keep a shield up around her mind to keep her dreams and Scott's dreams from mixing. Jean was a mutant who couldn't control her powers. How pathetic was that? All the others could. All the others did. And here she was, supposedly with this great and powerful gift and she couldn't even control herself enough to use it properly. It controlled her when she should be controlling it.

Finally, Professor Xavier was able to cut through the waves of self-recrimination. "_Jean_."

It was a double-whammy, heard inside her head as well as in her ears, aimed to make certain she sat up and listened.

Jean felt the professor's calming influence in the back of her head, telling her to settle down, relax. _Just listen,_ it told her.

She took a long, steady breath and was amazed how much calmer that simple act made her feel. Then she waited for him to speak.

"Jean," Professor Xavier began awkwardly. "If I may? Do you mind?"

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to mind, but didn't try to ask or speak again. At this point, she knew that even if started, she wouldn't be able to stop again.

The professor tried again. "If I understand correctly, this is not the first time this has happened, is it?"

Still not daring to talk, Jean nodded her head. There was some movement out of the corner of her eye; Scott shaking his head, too. In all honesty, she'd just about forgotten that he was still in the room with her and Professor Xavier. A quick look around showed that Logan and Ororo had left without her noticing, probably when she was having one of her freak outs.

"Yes, it is the first time, or yes, it has happened before?"

"It's happened before, sir," Scott told him.

"More than once?"

"A few times, sir. Umm, a lot of times, I guess."

"Which is—never mind. It doesn't matter how often it's happened before, just that it has happened." Professor Xavier paused. "And what exactly _is_ it? What happened?"

Again, Scott answered the question. "It really wasn't Jean's fault, sir. It just kinda… happened."

Professor Xavier cut him off, raising his hand, palm outwards in a "stop" action. "I'm not looking to blame this on Jean—or you, Scott. I simply want to know what happened. The facts. Not who's to blame, just what happened. To begin with, when did this start?"

"A couple weeks ago," Scott said. "I, well, I woke up one night. And I just knew that I had to go see Jean. Something was wrong. When I got there, she was having a nightmare. She was still asleep, but… well… things were floating. She was making things move about in her sleep. So I woke her up."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone? Myself? Ororo? Logan?" the professor asked.

Scott shrugged. "We didn't want to bother anyone. It was the middle of the night."

The professor sighed, a long suffering sigh. His hands were at his temples again and Jean thought he was wondering why he had ever believed that running a school was a good idea.

"Next time, _bother us_. This not the sort of thing you should keep hidden."

He closed his eyes before continuing. "So you had a feeling that Jean was having a bad dream. You went to her room and discovered that it was true. This happened not just once, but 'lots of' times over the past few weeks. Correct?"

"Yes," Scott mumbled. "Well, sort of."

Opening his eyes again, Professor Xavier raised his brows. At this point there was little left that could surprise him. "Sort of?" he repeated.

Jean finally recovered use of her tongue. "It wasn't just my nightmares, it was Scott's, too. I woke up because I'd be having a nightmare about—" She paused, slightly, wondering if she should share Scott's nightmares or if she should keep them as private. At least as private as they could be, considering she had already eavesdropped into his mind on more than one occasion, however accidental it may have been.

She compromised. "They weren't mine. I could tell. So I went into Scott's room to wake him up. Because he woke me up when I had them, and nightmares are no fun, so I wanted to do the same for him."

"Which explains tonight and why you were in Scott's room," the professor concluded.

"Yes."

"So when Scott was having a nightmare you actually had it as well?" the professor asked rhetorically. "I suppose that with the heightened emotions that come from nightmares he would be more prone to projecting, and if you were asleep as well, your mental shields would not have been as strong as they would normally are when awake.

"What troubles me more is that when _Jean_ was the one with the nightmares, she was projecting as well, albeit a sense of danger, or unease. But only, it seems, to Scott. Certainly, I never picked up anything myself and I'm certain that had Ororo or Logan felt the same sense of danger, they would have told me earlier."

There was one small, but important, flaw in the professor's summary. Jean bit her lip, wondering if she could interrupt yet.

"Umm, sir?" Scott said, deciding the matter for her.

"Yes, Scott?" Professor Xavier said.

"That's… not exactly right."

Once again, the professor was forced to repeat his student's words with dread. "Not right?"

"It wasn't exactly unease…"

"He saw my dreams, too," Jean blurted out.

Professor Xavier looked to Scott for confirmation. Scott was looking down at his hands in his lap again. "You saw her dreams, as well."

"Yessir."

"I suppose if Jean's nightmares upset her, it would only be natural for her grip on her shields to fail. Shields dropped naturally when asleep, causing thoughts to be louder. Add to that the distress of a nightmare, and I suppose she could have projected her own dreams onto a nearby mind. It has been known to happen

As he trailed off, steepling his fingers thoughtfully, Jean tried to tell herself that he was the expert and was more likely to know about these things than she did, even if it did sound like he was thinking out loud and not very sure of what he was saying at all. There was one too many "suppose"s in his speech for her liking. But he was the professor and he was probably right, even if the explanation didn't seem to explain why it was only Scott and Jean who had been affected by this, not anyone else.

Jean felt something tickle at the edges of her mind. The Professor looked up sharply.

"There is something there. There's—" He cut off abruptly, which only made Jean even more nervous.

She could _feel_ the shock leaking out of Professor Xavier, whose control over his shields was normally so perfect that even on her worst days, Jean had never seen behind them before now. Beside her, Scott seemed to be picking up on their mentor's concern, sitting up a little straighter on his chair.

Professor Xavier abruptly remembered himself, tightening his shields so Jean no longer felt the concern seeping from them. Then he spoke to assuage their fears.

"Nothing's wrong. Nothing that can't be fixed," he started, the words obviously meant to be more comforting than they were. "It's my own fault, really. I should have noticed long before now, especially since, as you were saying, this has been going on for some time now.

"You've formed a bond with each other, a telepathic bond. It's faint, but it's there. Thankfully, because you were both trying so hard to perfect your shielding, it didn't progress too far, nor interfere with your life while you were awake. But while you slept, you were more vulnerable, particularly when you had nightmares. After the first time Jean's mind reached out and formed a bond, it was easier to connect subsequent times."

He had been addressing both of them, but now he turned to Jean. "I don't know why you latched onto Scott the first time instead of someone else. Maybe it was the proximity."

He hesitated here, slightly, and Jean might have realized he wasn't convinced of that explanation, if she weren't too busy berating herself for forming a bond with Scott without his permission. While she wasn't entirely sure what a bond entailed, she was sure that it was considered rude in the telepathic circles.

Sometimes she wished that there was a book of rules for telepaths. Her mother was a big fan of etiquette books, and although Jean had never enjoyed reading them, there were some circumstances when it would be helpful.

That was, of course, provided she could ever gain the slightest iota of control over her abilities.

But as usual, Professor Xavier continued on instead of waiting for Jean to get past her self-criminations.

"Since the bond is still faint, it should be easy to break."

"Break?" Scott asked sharply.

"Yes, Scott, break," Professor Xavier repeated. "I'm afraid it's the only option. It won't hurt," he added, deducing Scott's cause of concern. "You won't feel a thing."

Jean felt the professor's presence in her mind.

And then it was over.

End Part Nine


	10. Epilogue

Posted Sunday, December 30

If you got here by pressing the "last chapter" link, you might want to go back. This is the third chapter I've posted today.

There are more author's notes at the end.

* * *

**Nightmares  
Epilogue: Friends **

Except it wasn't over, not really.

Jean slept soundly for the rest of that night. Come morning, both she and Scott were brought (separately) into the professor's office for a lecture. Even if no one had been at fault for the nightmares, the fact that neither of them told anyone, instead choosing to sneak into each others' rooms night after night, was definitely against the spirit of the school's rules, if not the wording of the rules.

"Don't worry too much, Jean," Professor Xavier said at the end, offering her a sympathetic smile. "These things happen to all telepaths. It's part of the learning process."

He grew quickly became serious again, though not as severe as he had been during the rest of the lecture, adding: "But if it happens again, let me know. I can't help you if I don't know."

The next time Jean had a nightmare, it was one of her own. It was clearly Annie and clearly a car crash. Clearly her own (distorted) memories of her childhood friend's death, completely lacking a single lick of fire or the reddish tint that had become common over the last few weeks.

The professor was the only other person to awaken and come to comfort Jean.

School started, which was even a greater relief than Jean had originally thought it would be. Being caught meant that she now had to concentrate to keep herself blushing whenever she was around Scott. She couldn't be in his presence without being reminded of that night and what she had done, how she had violated his mind, even if it was unintentional. Scott had every right to hate her for that telepathic bond. He claimed he didn't, in their stilted conversation the morning afterwards, but she knew there was no way he could actually understand what the bond meant and not hate her for it.

Especially since now she kept catching him give her unknowable looks, looks she was afraid to decipher.

Which was why school was doubly a blessing. While she had only hoped, but not expected, to make any friends (not after everyone at her last school had labelled her a freak), Jean did. Real friends. A group of girls asked her to sit with them at lunch the second day, and by the end of the first week, they were already making plans to tryout for the soccer team.

But somehow, as exciting as her new friends were, Jean was more thankful for the relief that they brought to her strained… whatever she had with Scott than for their own merit. She wasn't avoiding her fellow mutant now; she was simply too busy getting to know her new friends. She had a social life for the first time and it thrilled her. It wasn't her fault Scott had other friends, different friends.

But still, the nightmares continued.

Not as often as before, and Jean had just about convinced herself that she'd grown out of that phase when, right before she went home for the Christmas break, she experienced her first nightmare while Professor Xavier was away and unable to settle her down.

As always, it took her a few minutes to figure out that she was safe in bed. Her best friend wasn't dying beside her (inside her)—that had happened years ago. But this time, it seemed to take even longer for to remember what was real and what wasn't. Even though she was sitting up in bed, trying to slow her breath down, Jean could have sworn she was still dreaming when she heard Scott's voice.

"Are you alright, Jean?"

She turned to look at him, but didn't answer right away.

"Jean?" Scott took a step closer, then, thinking better of it, turned back to flick the switch on her wall. Only when the light flooded Jean's room and she could see him clearly did she realize that he was really there; it wasn't a remnant of her dream.

"Sorry Scott," she mumbled, wishing there was an inconspicuous way to burrow underneath her covers. It hadn't been this embarrassing in the past, but then in the past she didn't know it was her that—

"Oh, no!" she said, dread of her nightmare being replaced with dread that the bond was back. "I didn't wake you, did I? I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it!"

Just as she was on the verge of tears, Scott shook his head. "I wasn't asleep."

"Oh. Oh," she repeated, trying to calm down. Her face crinkling in confusion. "What?"

Scott avoided her gaze—actually hanging his head to look down at his feet or the floor so that Jean could know without a doubt that he wasn't meeting her eyes.

"I couldn't sleep," he said again, as if it might explain everything this time.

"Oh." Jean couldn't think of anything else to say. She moved to the edge of the bed so that he'd have room to come sit beside her, hoping that maybe this return to form would ease the tension between them, maybe even allow them to have a real conversation, but Scott hung back, shaking his head.

"We're not allowed, remember?" he asked.

"I forgot," Jean admitted, her face burning because there was no excuse for her forgetting, especially since just a second ago she'd been thinking how strangely awkward this visit was compare to the older ones.

"Come on," Scott said, jerking his chin in the door's direction. "No one said anything against us going downstairs and watching a movie."

Jean pulled a robe on over her pyjamas, even if Scott had seen her in less. On the way down, they bickered lightly over what movie to watch (Scott wanted _The Empire Strikes Back_ while Jean preferred _Return of the Jedi_, so they compromised and put in _A New Hope_), but kept the conversation clearly away from the topic of nightmares. Curling up on the couch, in separate afghans, Jean was all start the movie when out of the blue, Scott said:

"We never do this anymore."

Jean's hand froze over the "power" button of the remote.

"Well, we, umm, kinda aren't supposed to," she said bashfully.

Scott's cheeks coloured, too, slightly, and Jean hoped he wasn't having second thoughts or regrets. It was only _A New Hope_. Surely none of the adults would yell at them for watching that. It wasn't as if they were in the same bed; they weren't even sharing a blanket this time.

"No," he mumbled, hurriedly. "That's not what I mean. I mean we're just—we're not really friends anymore."

Jean forgot the remote completely. "Of course we're friends. How could you think that?"

"Well, we don't do anything together. It's school. You have your friends and I have mine and… well, I don't think Professor Xavier meant we weren't allowed to talk ever anymore, just that we weren't supposed to, well, sleep together." His cheeks started to burn as he mumbled those last words. "Fall asleep together," he corrected himself.

"Oh," Jean said. She fiddled with the blanket, poking her fingers through the crochet holes for lack of anything better to do or say. The silence held for a moment before Scott sighed.

"I guess that's my answer," he said, very softly.

"No." Jean wasn't exactly sure what he thought the answer was, but if his tone of voice was anything to go by, it wasn't something she wanted him to think.

"No?" he repeated.

"I'm sorry, Scott," Jean said even though she still wasn't exactly sure what she was apologizing for. But she did know that he was right; they didn't talk anymore. They didn't do anything with each other anymore. And surely Professor Xavier didn't mean for that to happen.

"I didn't… I wasn't trying to…"

Jean tried again. "I do want to be your friend. School has just been so busy, and then there's soccer, and I'm meeting all these new people, and I wasn't trying to ignore you. I promise."

"Good."

Jean looked up to see him give her a dazzling smile, the likes of which she had never expected to see from the distant boy she'd met so many months ago.

"Scott?" she asked hesitantly.

"Let's try this again," he said. "Okay?"

"Try what again?" Jean asked, confused at where the conversation had gone.

"All of it. Everything. Let's forget about, well, everything, and try this again."

Forgetting about everything sounded like a perfect plan to Jean. She matched his smile and for the first time in months found herself able to look at him straight in the face, trying to meet his eyes behind the mask.

"Okay, let's do it. Let's start over," she said. "Friends?"

"Friends," Scott said.

* * *

That's it. The end. All over but the crying or, in this case, the author's notes, even if they are a bit whiny. 

Before I start, I want to say that this is not a plea for reviews, so please don't take it that way.

There are a couple of big problems with **Nightmares**, I know. It's been several years since I watched the cartoon, so I hope I didn't mess up anything in canon too badly. It was also my first attempt to write something in non-chronological order, and I can think of at least one plot hole that arose because of this. Every time I tried to fix it, everything just became more confusing, so in the end, it still remains. Oops?

I don't like this story. It's been done before, and by better authors than I. (And by "done before" I don't mean the finished product, but rather what I was attempting to do.) I probably never should have written it.

But I did start it. And since I started it, I felt the need to finish, since I hate coming across unfinished stories. And it will remain up, even if I'm unhappy with it, because I hate searching for a fic I've read long ago, only to discover the author has taken it off the net.


End file.
